General Election: Comment from Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA)

23 May 2024

Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA) said: “The Prime Minister’s decision to call a General Election comes fast on the heels of a sharp fall in inflation and welcome improvements to the economy. After challenging local election results, this positive economic news will be a key factor in firing the campaign starting gun. It will be interesting to see whether there is more good cheer for voters in terms of interest rate cuts.

Whichever party forms the next Government, we continue to deal with the challenges of a broken housing market. New ministers will need to tackle these urgently. Top of the list should be digitising our property data and resolving the notoriously sluggish homebuying process. The Open Property Data Association recently gave evidence to The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee’s ‘Improving the home buying and selling process’ inquiry, calling for the entire home buying and selling process to be digitised within three years. We appreciate the issues with supply and quality of housing but sharing digital property information across the housing market is a vital first step towards improving customer confidence in the homebuying and moving process and will slash contract exchange times significantly contributing millions to GDP.”