‘Transform home buying for good’ is goal of new strategic partnership

Digital marketing agency Angels Media and digital platform Gazeal have announced an exclusive strategic partnership to help improve and speed up the homebuying and selling process.

Angels Media - publisher of Estate Agent Today and owner of PropTech platform The ValPal Network - has endorsed Gazeal as the best way of driving the market to change for good, by helping to increase the use of upfront information and reservation agreements.

“More than ever, a greater amount of upfront information has become important to ensure that buyers know what they’re getting and are really serious about entering the buying process” says Nat Daniels, chief executive of Angels Media.

“Equally, there has long been a need to cut the amount of gazumping and gazundering that goes on in the property market, and reservation agreements are the best way of achieving this.”

Momentum has recently been building for agents to provide more upfront information on property details and the portals, rather than waiting until a buyer has expressed interest to take this step.

The National Trading Standards and Letting Agents Team recently carried out a survey – which ended last week - asking agents how this can best be achieved, while also revealing a new document called The Case for Change: Improving Provision of Material Information In Property Sales and Lettings.

NTSLEAT released the results of a survey of people who have moved in the last three years or are looking to move in the next three years; some 90 per cent of respondents who use portals would prefer to find more detailed or key information about a property when they’re searching.

Meanwhile 87 per cent of respondents agreed that portals should include all key information about a home in their listing, and more than half said that they would be less likely to buy or rent where information was missing on the property listing.

Further to this, the research revealed that 40 per cent of respondents assume that missing information means something wrong with the property.

“This research shows the increasing importance of upfront information and the expectations consumers have of agents to provide it” Daniels adds. “There are so many factors that buyers consider before searching for a home, and these have changed and become more focused as a result of the pandemic.”

And Bryan Mansell, co-founder of Gazeal, adds: “At Gazeal, our goal is to help revolutionise the buying and selling process to make it secure, transparent and fast. We want the holy trinity of empowered buyers, safe sellers and happy agents, and clearer upfront information and reservation agreements play a key role in that.”

He suggests this is even more the case with the market under stamp duty holiday pressure, the introduction of the government’s 95 per cent mortgage guarantee scheme, and agents having to follow Covid guidelines.

“Conveyancers, surveyors, agents and removal firms are already snowed under and up against it, so anything that can be done to help speed along a still often frustrating, cumbersome and time-consuming process will no doubt be welcomed” Mansell states.

“The homebuying and selling process has long needed to move into the digital space and keep up to speed with the modern world, and we can see the first green shoots of that happening. But the pandemic should help to sharpen minds and push forward progress.”

Angels Media and Gazeal will be working together to highlight the benefits of reservation agreements and better upfront information as the right thing to do to really help the industry to thrive, improve and cope with the ongoing market surge. 

June is likely to be a particularly busy month as the stamp duty holiday reaches the first part of its two-stage conclusion, and there has been no suggestion that record high levels of demand will be falling away anytime soon.

Daniels concludes: “We know that Gazeal has a great concept and a clear vision to change the homebuying and selling process for the better, and that Bryan – as a former agent – inherently understands the challenges and frustrations that agents face in keeping buyers and sellers happy and transactions moving through the system.”