The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has expressed that regulations should be relaxed to allow new property search websites to increase competition and “shake up” the “traditional” housing market model. Whilst Tesco’s former proposal to launch such a service fell, largely due to regulation burdens, it is expected that should rules allow, Google will launch a property searching service later this year.
Expressing the views after a long investigation into the matter, the OFT explained that traditional estate agents continued to dominate the housing market, allowing weak price competition. Believing that innovation is much needed in the sector they added “The way current legislation, dating from 1979, is framed may be hindering the development of new business models and needs reform so that new entrants, for example those that only introduce private sellers to each other, are not burdened with inappropriate regulation.”
As the reports conclusion’s surface, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) Pete Bolton King expressed that the OFT had in fact failed in proposing the security that the home buying and selling market needed. He explained “Buying a home is often the largest single transaction of a person’s life and it is disappointing that the OFT has not thought it appropriate to acknowledge that a robust and appropriate level of consumer protection is needed. The NAEA would like to see a greater level of regulation to ensure that professional, qualified estate agents are not confused with agents that, all too often, fail to meet the basic professional standards we would expect from our members.”
