A new service launches today which is designed to let agents keep track of sales progressions through cloud-based technology.
It has been tested with some agents, but from today, View My Chain is available to the wider market with agents of all sizes being able to request a “test drive”.
View My Chain is said to be different from other progression services because it does not depend on data entry from other agents, conveyancers or integration with other third-party systems.
Instead, it works by accessing a whole of market database of property listings, legal searches and mortgage applications, claiming to provide instant visibility of key milestones.
These include: price agreed, contracts under way, searches ordered, searches back, and mortgage funding.
The firm says View My Chain is the first automated tool which allows an agent to track milestones without relying upon phone calls, chasing and secondhand information which can often be inaccurate.
It also includes details of all the properties in the chain, with automated notifications, and identifying potential delays and issues with timed lag alerts, alerting agents to potential problems quickly so delays can be picked up and solved.
View My Chain is the brainchild of Sohail Rashid and tech entrepreneur Ian Lancaster.
Rashid, who started his career as a property lawyer, latterly ran Property Network, which utilised Facebook as a means of sourcing leads for agents and also carried listings.
He sold Property Network to TwentyCi, and retains an interest in the business, which is now a free to list platform for estate agents.
Rashid told EYE: “Facebook offers a huge opportunity to target consumers based on behaviour and lifestyle triggers, and its audience is the right demographic for the property market.
“However, it will take a significant investment to leverage this to generate high value and volume leads for estate agents. Social media generally is such a fascinating and fast-moving space today, and the new products that are emerging are once again changing the digital landscape.
“It will be very interesting to see what opportunities this will create for the property sector over the coming years and how online advertising changes to reach growing consumer expectations.
He said of his latest venture, which has been two years in development: “View My Chain will completely overhaul the nature of sales progression.
“We have created a unique whole of market database in collaboration with key stakeholders of the UK property market.
“This allows agents to identify the real-time status of their own sales and related properties in the chain, without relying upon traditional information gathering from agents or legal representatives.
“View My Chain provides much-needed transparency and certainty in the sales progression process.
“It is designed to empower good agents and help them speed up the sales process and reduce the chance of fall throughs.”
Estimates of fall-throughs vary, but according to the Nottingham Building Society, 22% of sales fail.
Agents interested in a ‘test drive’ can email team@viewmychain.com
Comments (6)
met rashid recently at an event he was speaking at
he seemed like a nice guy and he sold it really well. after testing vmc though i wasn’t too impressed.
there’s only marginal added benefit in using this and considering the cost, it’s not worth the extra hassle.
Always get a few dislikes, but not sure why this time? The system, I believe, informs when searches are out and back and Mortgage Offer is issued etc. No one is stopping agents phone the conveyancer if they still feel the need.
Intrigued how it gathers all of this confidential information from many different professions, mortgage lenders and solicitors who all have to comply with DPA?
I doubt there is a DPA issue as the property addresss (which I’ll assume is the key identifier) on its own does not reveal personal information.
If you really want to know the data source/s, sign-up for a trial of the product. Whilst in the app, on the Chrome menu, go to More Tools and choose developer tools. Normally found in ‘Network’ choose XHR filter (XMLHttpRequest) and anything in the ‘Type’ column starting ‘application’ is likely to be the API request to the database they’re using.
Whilst this seems like a great idea it doesn’t mitigate the fact that solicitors lie, even if you know the mortgage offer has been issued or the local searches are back that doesn’t mean that the conveyancer will admit that. Giving updates to clients without actually speaking with the conveyancer seems like a quick way to end up with egg on your face. Maybe I’m missing the point though!
Rashid recently gave me a run through of how View MY Chain would work. I particularly liked the fact that “it does not depend on data entry from other agents, conveyancers or integration with other third-party systems.”
Here is hoping someone has developed a system that will help agents stay updated without having to call conveyancers too often.
For what it is worth, I was impressed by Rashid and the concept (in principle at least).