It’s been one year since the launch of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA). OPDA set out with a mission to facilitate the open exchange of property related data to improve the house buying and remortgaging journey for all.
The open property data framework represents a pivotal shift in how we harness the full potential of data. It ensures information can be shared, accessed, and interpreted seamlessly across different systems and platforms, fostering a new era of efficiency, transparency and innovation. Data should, in theory, be able to flow easily between estate agents, origination platforms, lenders, conveyancers and every stakeholder in between without compromising security for the end user – we’re not there yet, but these standards are getting us a lot closer.
The need for this transformation cannot be overstated. It paves the way for a much more user centric experience: creating efficiency, increasing accuracy and consistency of data to avoid duplication errors and facilitating collaboration which is vital in an industry with so many stakeholders and moving parts. It stops users having to jump through countless hoops to get access to the information they need, giving them the data at their fingertips. The potential for improvement in the experience of the end consumer is vast.
As a founding member of the Association and an active member of the Executive Board, PEXA has been at the heart of this growth journey, facilitating the development of a broad ecosystem. And we’ve come a long way in just 365 days. We can now count Lloyds Banking Group, finova and Zoopla as members among many more, and have helped establish a strong, unified voice to highlight to government the need for commitment to digitisation. Maria Harris, Chair of the OPDA, was asked to attend the government select committee on improving the home buying and selling process in June. We’re proud to contribute our knowledge and expertise in both the UK and Australian markets to demonstrate the capabilities that true open data can bring.
However, despite putting these important foundations for change in place, with only around 1% of property data being openly available in digital format, there is much more work to be done and we continue into the OPDA’s second year with renewed vigour.
We now have a new Labour government in No.10 promising to ‘fix’ the housing market, but there is no silver bullet to success. Building new homes alongside increased digitisation are steps in the right direction but there are many more aspects to address in order to secure the future of our home buying nation. We’ll continue to beat this drum in collaboration with the industry to enact change and our commitment to the OPDA is more than just words; it’s a vision of what’s possible in the property industry. By embracing these standards and encouraging others to do the same, we’re embracing a future where property transactions are smart, seamless and secure for all.
