An interview with property expert Rob Houghton, co-founder and CEO of reallymoving, the comparison site for home movers providing quotes and reviews for conveyancing, surveys and removals across the UK.
Tell us about yourself and the company
Along with my wife Rosie, I set up reallymoving during the dot com boom in 1999, after a particularly frustrating house move where we’d had difficulty finding a good conveyancer, surveyor and removals firm. We’d struggled through with the Yellow Pages and a few recommendations from friends, but we knew there must be a better way and the idea of reallymoving was born. We launched from our kitchen table with £10,000 savings and since then the business has grown to serve 10% of all UK home movers, providing nearly 3 million quotes for home move services since our inception.
What is your role at reallymoving?
I’m the Chief Executive and Rosie and I still own a majority share in the business, so I oversee the day to day running of the company from our offices in St Albans. We’re always looking for new ways to help home movers, from the moment they decide to move to the day they get the keys to their new home and beyond, so our Home Move Hub is a continuous work in progress with guides and advice, checklists, data and interactive calculators. We have vast amounts of data, and I really enjoy delving into that to understand trends in the property market and help keep our customers informed by sharing those insights in a simple way.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing home movers looking for professional services?
One of the biggest challenges currently is the pace of the conveyancing process, which is much slower than pre-covid. Firms took on a lot of new staff during the pandemic race for space, when the property market was booming, but that demand didn’t last which led to lots of redundancies in the sector. It’s difficult to grow conveyancing capacity, as training takes many months and it’s very resource-intensive, plus the market is very volatile, so understandably firms are hesitant about hiring. Lots of conveyancers also left the sector after the pandemic Stamp Duty holiday due to stress. For home movers, this can mean waiting longer than they might expect for conveyancing to run its course.
Who is your typical client?
We work with every type of home mover across the UK, from First Time Buyers and second and third steppers, to downsizers and buy to let investors. The median purchase price of our customers who are buying and selling at the same time is £264,000 and they typically move around 13 miles from their old property to their new one. Our client base leans towards those seeking best services and great value for money from trusted providers.
How much does it cost to move home?
Our latest data shows that moving home in England costs £15,653, including conveyancing, a Level 2 Homebuyer survey, removals, Stamp Duty and estate agent fees, and an EPC. That’s for someone buying and selling at the same time.
Costs vary hugely around the country, with Londoners paying more than six times as much as those in the North East, for example. That’s largely down to the disparity in average house prices, which impacts Stamp Duty and estate agent fees – the two largest expenses.
How can people save money on a home move?
There are several measures movers can take to help manage costs. Obviously, I would say use a comparison site and shop around, checking reviews as well as prices. Plan ahead if you can, to try and move during quieter periods when there’s less competition for services, such as late autumn and the new year, and avoid peak times like the end of the summer holidays. Book removals well in advance to help budget costs, and sometimes it’s possible to agree on a cheaper deal if you’re willing to move mid-week, as opposed to a Thursday or Friday.
For most people, buying a home is one of the largest and most important financial decisions they will ever make, so it’s important not to cut corners when it comes to a survey. It can uncover major issues such as subsidence, dampness, woodworm, Japanese knotweed or problems with the roof, which may be costly to fix and could deter you from buying the property or give you grounds to renegotiate the price.
How is your industry evolving?
There’s a steady trend towards the digitisation of the home moving industry. Conveyancers are increasingly using apps and online services to make their service more efficient and to provide automated updates for their customers. There are AI tools that can scan contracts and automatically identify risky clauses that need to be reviewed. Vital processes such as Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer are being automated to provide greater security. Searches and Land Registry data are being digitised, which can cut waiting times for key information to be provided from weeks to seconds.
Similarly, there is a range of surveyor tools to help with the management of survey enquiries and bookings and streamline the creation of reports. Even in removals, which will always be a physical task requiring skilled teams of movers to transport belongings, many firms are doing remote volume estimates which can save time and cost for both the firms and their customers.
What’s next on the horizon for reallymoving?
It’s our 25th birthday this November, which feels like a huge milestone and we’re incredibly excited about what the future holds!
We’re constantly evolving our services to provide greater value for both movers are moving service providers. As part of that, we’re expanding the range of services we offer, both ourselves and through partnerships with other companies, and looking to provide deeper integration with our partners, automating data exchange wherever possible.
We have also acquired The Law Superstore, which is the UK’s leading comparison site for legal services. Using our experience with reallymoving, we’re focused on revolutionising online legal services, generating high-quality, verified leads and making it easier for customers to find and compare legal services online.
For more information visit; www.reallymoving.com
