THE FOLLOWING PUBLISHED POSTS ARE A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS OF ANDREW STANTON, TOTALLING OVER 100-PAGES THEY ARE PUBLISHED REPLIES TO ARTICLES WRITTEN IN THE ESTATE AGENT TODAY MAGAZINE. IN THE PERIOD - OCTOBER 2017 TO JANUARY 2020. Andrew Stanton Global ranked Proptech & Real Estate Analyst, Influencer, Consultant & Journalist 133,539 Profile Views ABOUT ME Global Proptech Real Estate Industry Influencer, providing paid for consultancy, insights, strategies, PR & commentary on the Proptech & Real Estate world. Advising companies and senior professionals in both sectors, with guidance to maximise enlightenment, growth, profitability, brand awareness and minimise risk, in an era of digital transformation. Please call 07535-029676, over 35-years of experience and networking, [email protected], www.estate-agency-insights-strategies.co.uk. linkedin.com/in/andrew-stanton-2a50b6191 Real Estate and Proptech industry analyst, consultant and journalist. Global Unissu ranked Proptech influencer and advocate. Actively promoting communication and connection between the Proptech & Real Estate industry through engagement, debate, mutual collaboration, ideas, products and services. Paid for consultancy, providing insights, strategies & commentary on the Real Estate & Proptech world. Advising companies and senior professionals in both sectors, with guidance to maximise enlightenment, growth, profitability, brand awareness and minimise risk, in an era of digital transformation. VARIOUS TOPICS – PUBLISHED IN – ESTATE AGENT TODAY - OCTOBER 2017 TO JANUARY 2020. Andrew Stanton's Recent Activity Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer ‘A comprehensive property DNA pack is long overdue to front load a property, ensuring that from point of sale onward exchange can occur more quickly. But, with 18 weeks being the usual time frame for a sale, to get over the line, despite all the tech in the sector – something is not going right. Many in the property sector are scrambling for answers from Land registry and digital street and hackathons and shared perspectives. But as Taylor Wessing legal luminaries in the digital field, both in the adoption of tech and embracing proptech firms, stated yesterday, exchanges are governed by the slowest component in the chain. Solicitors are risk averse, so tech is a slow go for many legal firms, which means, great have more information on property as in the PIP initiative, but if you have a conveyancing practice who is not tech ready, then you are in for a long haul. Piecemeal solutions are helpful, but the antiquated property sector it is a bit like a poor relative of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The model is not good, so more and more data is fed in and bit by painful bit until the digital ‘brain’ recognises it must change its approach to achieve the required outcome.’ From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 28 January 2020 17:19 PM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer It is a catchy tune 'digital transformation of real estate' the 'automation' of many parts of the industry and using new tech to solve both new and old questions. The problem with estate agency is that like many industries it is a legacy proposition. We always do it a certain way, and better to keep the status quo - wrong - the new status quo is re-imagining how things can be done better and new efficiencies achieved. I am not sure call centres and lots of humans are a better alternative to AI and machine learning, though I do like the idea of putting the customer first. From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 28 January 2020 17:15 PM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer I believe in education, qualifications and developing yourself, as everyone now is very much their own person and own brand. But I am not sure that Boris is up for regulation of the sector, the recent Liverpool debacle with licences in landlords being shut down, shows perhaps a retrograde element creeping into the property sector. Also, whilst I support development of property professionals (agency is a profession) I think RoPA may be jumping the gun, as it could be 24 months or never before Baron Best who is 75 years old gets his vision through government. For me the key skills RoPA should be instilling is the ones that teach agents how to handle the tsunami that is the digital transformation of the industry. It is clear agents need to be compliant and conversant with all regulations and provide a service based on professional etiquette, but having recently see Mark Burgess hold forth with his Iceberg Digital summation of where the industry is going - think more amazon or google or Netflix rather than high street agencies taking professional photography and thinking this is cutting edge. You soon start to realise that the industry is very much at a tipping point, where industry visionaries arguably have more to offer than industry regulators however well-meaning their intention is. Remember half of the global population is now Gen Z so if your agency is geared to, and markets to the baby boomers or older millennials who are 40 now, in a few years your customers will not be doing business with you. From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 28 January 2020 11:45 AM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer Reservation agreements, given that 28% to 32% of residential agreed sales fail, any mechanism to minimise cancelled sales should be embraced. But, when you drill down into the figures, and find that of the 32% that fall through, less than 30% of these do so because the vendor or buyer goes back on the deal. It is clear that other factors need to be addressed. As the major factors for a sale going off are: - adverse surveys, finance problems, problems with legals and problems in a chain type sale. To my mind, the immediate payment of a non-refundable local authority search fee, at point of a sale being agreed, and monies on account by the buyer with the search paid for immediately. With an equal commitment made by the vendor if buying on, is better than any 'deposit'. Or, maybe a meaningful 5% deposit, but, given the legal sector will say this is unfair, and cause complications later as a squabble develops due to adverse survey or defective title, I think this is just a minefield. The real solution is simple, replace the slow pace of the transaction with new thinking, get the mathematicians, data scientists to sort the problem, and build a proper system. So, that at point of sale, the title, the property, the finance, the survey, the searches, the identity of all concerned is all put together in a sealed digital process, where and exchange can be instantaneous. The blocks to this road map, land registry (I know digital street exists), the present conveyancing process based on paper and preserving the status quo and there being no risk in the process, and the present lending system. Estate agents are 'introducers' like Amazon they do not make anything - they facilitate commerce, the transfer of title, but, they do not engage in that process. The good news is that Gen-Z are going to by their force of numbers - (half of the global population is now Gen-Z) - make the digital transformation of the real estate a reality. Just because mum and dad patiently waited 18 weeks to complete on their home, after choosing to buy it, does not mean that the tech savvy generation who are already re-shaping the world by bringing in more efficiencies will be passive passengers held to ransom. No, just as Greta Thunberg is showing, if enough people say there is a better way, solutions will be found. From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 27 January 2020 20:33 PM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer At a recent seminar hosted by Taylor Wessing who are international solicitors, who took the step to digitally automate their business, and also represent amongst others proptech companies, one of the delegates asked the question will an algorithm replace the solicitor industry. Joe Pepper the MD thought not, and I concur. But financial services is a different sector, absolutely ripe for the devastation or helping hand of the tech revolution. People who need financial advice relating to property, should be able to just click into the intel. From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 26 January 2020 21:43 PM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer Though I know of no scorecard, does anyone out there know what in 2019 was the profile of companies who set up in that year. E.g., 100 traditional agents set up from an office, 80 hub agents set up from high street location, 40 hub agents set up from non-high street location, 23 franchises taken, 230 self- employed in eXp or KW type of role, 170 LPE's various online agents. Just to get an idea of the direction of travel, including the opening of new corporate branches in whatever format. I think it will make interesting reading. From: Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer 20 January 2020 11:16 AM Andrew Stanton Proptech Real Estate Strategist - Journalist and Influencer The race is very much on with Coadjute the early favourite, with its overarching blockchain strategy to increase transparency and speed of property deals. I know that at its heart it wants to, as many solvers of problems do, find and affect inefficiencies in the present dis-jointed system and remove barriers.