How Can We Speed Up Property Transactions? | UK Housing Market

Despite the ever-increasing demand and interest for technology in our day to day lives, the housing market has yet to catch up, especially the home buying process. So how can we speed up property transactions in the UK housing market? And when will this happen?

Phil Spencer introduces Coadjute in this latest of our 'People in Property' series. A technology company aimed at providing infrastructure to help speed up property transactions. Coadjute CEO, Dan Salmons shares with Phil the role they play in this process and how this will help us, the consumer, with a quicker home buying process.

You can also watch the complete video on YouTube here.

Phil Spencer:

Hi everyone and thank you so much for joining me for my next People in Property chat, which is where I get together with industry friends who I feel are making a difference out there in the mad bad world of housing transactions and benefiting consumers.

So today I'm joined by Dan Salmons from Coadjute. Coadjute is a fantastic technology company that's really been described as next-generation infrastructure for the property market. They're making a big noise about speeding up transactions.

Dan, thank you so much for joining me.

Dan Salmons:

Yeah, really nice.

Phil Spencer:

I've read about Coadjute, I've talked to people about Coadjute but I haven't actually experienced it myself. But of course, the speeding up of housing transactions is a topic that everyone is yearning for and desperately in need of, but it has been chatted about and talked about and discussed and planned. And endless times people have seemingly come up with solutions.

But from what I'm hearing, Coadjute may have done that. Can you talk us through how it works? What it is, what it does, what the benefits are?

Dan Salmons:

Oh, thanks Phil. Yes, this is, it's a very different approach we are taking, that the heart of Coadjute really is a very simple idea, which is that most of the problems of buying and selling a home of the process in the property between the moment when you make the offer and completion, most of those problems are really information problems. It's just very difficult to get ahold of information as a buyer or seller of a home. You're often chasing around to try and find out what's going on. It's hard to share information. You often find you have to give the same information multiple times.

And that's of course also true in the industry as an estate agent, you'll know Phil, that you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get hold of people. And those people themselves might be frustrated that they're being chased. And then it's also really hard to share information securely. So something like digital identity, for example, cannot be shared in an easy way.

So all of those problems slow down the property transaction and make it opaque, difficult and confusing for consumers. And, and what Coadjute is doing is we are creating a digital network that's connecting together the estate agents, the conveyancers, the brokers, the banks and many other parties in the property world, securely and instantly so that they can share information on updates, on documents, messages, and any future other information immediately so that everyone can see the same thing and they can work together on the property transaction. And that's never been possible before. So yeah, in some ways, a simple idea.

Phil Spencer:

Why hasn't it been possible before? Because in a housing deal, everyone's pushing in the same direction. Everyone wants it to happen, but so many times it doesn't happen or it takes too long by which time someone's changed their mind and gone off and done something else. But why hasn't this taken place do you feel?

Dan Salmons:

Well, firstly, it's worth saying the property market's a peculiarly complex ecosystem. There aren't many markets that require so many different professions to come together, are there? So it is complicated.

And I think when previously people have tried to get everyone to connect, they've usually done it by, by asking them all to use some new platform in the middle, to use some system that they put all their data on, and use different screens and a different process. And understandably, people are very reticent to do that. I mean, it's important the data's secure. It's held on their own database. They don't necessarily want to pool it.

And what Coadjute does is it uses new technology which allows us to connect people directly to each other, through highly secure links. And that is transformative, that it means that people don't have to give their data to someone else.

And you know, the way I've an analogy for this a bit, like when you make a phone call, you wouldn't be very comfortable if it was recorded and then the recording passed to the other person. That's not what you want. You want a direct instant connection to the other person so you can share information both ways and that's what's not been possible before new technology, to be honest.

Phil Spencer:

So you saying that the agent and the solicitor and the mortgage broker and what have you can carry on using the systems that they currently use?

Dan Salmons:

Yeah.

Phil Spencer:

Coadjute connects them in some clever way because that's complicated.

Dan Salmons:

It is but you're right. That's exactly what we're doing. We have a very strong belief at Coadjute that we shouldn't be disruptors, that's not what the industry needs. The industry needs enabling. And so asking people to change the systems they use, the screens they come in and see in the morning is quite disruptive.

So what we are doing is connected behind the existing systems, but allowing any one system to be able to contact and share information instantly with whatever systems the other people are using. So yeah, quite complicated behind the scenes but from the experience of a user, actually very simple. It just means the information is available when they want it.

Phil Spencer:

And I've got to ask Dan, forgive me, but what about security because there's a lot of very delicate information that gets dealt with in a housing deal. How do you cope with that? People actually have been worried.

Dan Salmons:

And they should be. I think security is essential actually in a network like this. What we are using actually is a form of blockchain and not the blockchain that people will know about from cryptocurrency, with mining and sort of hiding people's identities.

We use something called distributed ledger technology. That's the buzzword for the day, which actually comes from banking and capital markets. So the banks of Italy all settle every night hundreds of millions of euros using this technology. So it's designed for very secure applications.

And what it does is it connects the two systems to each other over an encrypted network basically designed for high-value money, and fast speed of movement. And everybody on Coadjute, the identity is verified who they are, who's using the network, every transaction is timestamped and immutable, and every part of it is encrypted.

So when I compare that with today's world where we drop things into email and send them over public email to each other, it's a completely different order of magnitude and security. And that I think that's going to be really important actually. I think that's one of the reasons why it'll work.

Phil Spencer:

When we first met, whenever it was last year, you'd been involved in touch cards and that's also security. And I mean, that's deeply, but when that first came out that was deeply worrying that you could come in and touch your credit card. And someone would take 10 quid.

Dan Salmons:

Yeah. Contactless cards, it was that 15 years ago that I was first involved in rolling that out. And there's quite a lot of analogies actually because also people had said then, oh, this can never be done. You can never replace cash with something better.

And we hear that in the housing market, oh, this is a problem that cannot be solved. But no, it really can be with the right technology, but also applied in a way that's very simple to the user but with quite a lot of sophistication behind it.

And I know from my time and contactless card, there was a lot of sophistication which is why it has been tremendously secure and I think we're doing a lot of the same here. Just because it looks simple. Our job is a bit like a swan, behind the scenes, we've got some very smart guys and some very clever stuff, but no, it should come across as effortless.

I think that's essential. That's how it'll get massive adoption is that it's something that's very easy to use. And actually also for consumers as well, that they will be able to use it.

Phil Spencer:

I was going to ask, there's a massive appetite for things that speed up the market in the way that you're talking. But will the consumers, they're the ones spending the money or selling the house and they're going to bed at night worrying about it and thinking about it far more than the professionals are, can the consumer at home use the Coadjute system to see who's doing what, when, and where it's all got to?

Dan Salmons:

Yeah. They will be able to. The first phase of what we're doing right now is connecting the professionals so that might mean the data, if they've got a portal, that data might be more up to date thanks to Coadjute.

But we're already talking to the IT people about producing a home moving app and some household names are talking to us. I think that would be super exciting because, for the first time, the consumer can see the whole process in front of them. They can invite the parties they want to take part in and they can have those updates.

And the other thing the consumer can do, which I think is going to be a revolution, is when you're doing identity today, when you have to give your passport and all of that, there are some great apps now that allow you to do that electronically. But the trouble is once you've done it once, you still get asked for it again and that's because today there's no easy way of sharing that information.

Whereas the Coadjute network also allows identity to be shared. So it may mean that the consumer is giving their digital identity less often as well. So there are a lot of things that some of it will just be transparency. They can see what's going on. They can talk to the team of people who are working on their transaction in one place, which will feel very different, I think. That's how it is today.

Phil Spencer:

Everyone's pushing in the same direction, aren't they? They want the deal to happen.

Dan Salmons:

I think so, yeah.

Phil Spencer:

If it happens in a less stressful way, and it happens quicker and cheaper, then that's good news all around.

Dan Salmons:

Yeah. There's really no one objects to the Coadjute concept actually. It's very interesting. It's everyone, we know this from the trials we have conducted over the last three years, many of them with consumers. Everyone says if this existed, it would be awesome. It would make a real difference.

It really is in everyone's best interests to have this kind of national grid for property data. It really is.

Phil Spencer:

You've mentioned the word roll out a number of times, Dan. Is it the case that actually everyone needs to get behind it before it's fully useful or am I misunderstanding?

Dan Salmons:

No, the way we've designed it is so that actually we can roll it out in stages. So for an estate agent, if not all of their deals are on Coadjute, that's fine. They carry on working as they are. And the ones that are on Coadjute, they can get more up-to-date information and deal more easily with the conveyancers.

We hope people will ask for Coadjute. We're already seeing a bit of that where people prefer to deal with professionals on Coadjute, but we're rolling out in stages. We're starting with the estate agents and conveyancers. That's underway now. People are live and we are putting them live. We're doing several systems a month at the moment actually, and hundreds of companies joining Coadjute over the next coming months.

So I think by certainly the end of the year, it'll be becoming commonplace, and by the end of next year, I would hope that most of the companies that consumers are dealing with will either already be on Coadjute or will be joining it shortly.

Phil Spencer:

Exciting times.

Dan Salmons:

It should happen quite quickly, yeah.

Phil Spencer:

Very exciting times. It is obvious from what I'm hearing, as I say, I've not actually seen it and I've not used it, but from what I'm hearing from other industry colleagues, there is a great deal of appetite for it.

Dan Salmons:

Yeah, it is long overdue. I mean, as you say, there has been demand for this for a long time. I think what we've lacked is the kind of specialist technology that makes it possible.

And I think the will in the industry is there. You're absolutely right, everyone's pulling together. We're all trying to make this work better for the consumer. I think now, particularly with obviously the experience of lockdown and the need to digitize over the last few years, the wash of support in the industry from industry bodies, from government who are part of the home buying and selling group, the government has set up to help move digitization forward.

There's just so much support for this kind of technology that I think the moment's here now. I think it's really happened.

Phil Spencer:

Good for you. Good to hear. And are you able to give us some idea of how much quicker you think the transactions could happen if everyone was using Coadjute?

Dan Salmons:

Well, we think it could be as much as 50%, which sounds like crazy stuff, but it comes from two places actually.

One is just cutting down all the little gaps and delays whilst people wait for stuff and chase for stuff. We know in our trials that can actually add up to quite a lot actually.

I sort of remind people that the old days of manufacturing where the supply chain used to be very slow between factories because everyone was phoning around and that's where we are today. So we know that can be collapsed.

But the other area that's really exciting is Coadjute will be the rails on which lots of other innovation runs. So there are new developments like for example, bringing property data to the beginning of the transaction, getting it done earlier, that will be much easier because of Coadjute. So I think there will be lots of other innovations where the sharing of identity, collecting property data and so on, which will rely on the Coadjute rails to speed things up. And I think that will be the other contributors.

So yeah, it won't be all thanks to us but I hope we're putting in place an infrastructure here that really does make life easier for everyone and gets that speed going. Yeah, for sure.

Phil Spencer:

And it is music to my ears, and I know it'll be music to of everyone who's watching this and our audience at Move iQ. That is, I wish you all the luck in the world.

Dan Salmons:

Thank you, Phil.

Phil Spencer:

And crack on, I won't keep you any longer. You've got lots to do. You're going to save the world. You're going to save the housing market.

Dan Salmons:

Not on our own but thanks to lots of people who are. It's the people who connect into Coadjute that really make it work. So yeah, all credits to the many partners who join us.

Phil Spencer:

Dan, great to talk to you here about what you're doing at Coadjute. I wish you all the luck in the world. You're doing a brilliant job. Keep doing it.

Dan Salmons:

Thanks, Phil. Nice talking to you.

Phil Spencer:

Nice to talk to you.