The past couple of summers have seen surveyors having to deal with some huge volumes of business and, inevitably, with such strong levels of demand come challenges.
As we sit in the midst of the summer of 2022, this leads to the questions – how does this demand stack up now?
The UK housing market has proved time and time again that it is a highly resilient beast, although it is certainly not immune from an economic swell of rising interest rates and affordability constraints due to increased living costs.
However, homeownership aspirations remain fervent across the UK as does the desire to move. A combination highlighted in the latest market analysis from Zoopla which outlined that housing sales are expected to reach 1.3m in 2022 – 100,000 more than was originally forecast at the beginning of the year.
This also means the pace of house price growth is slowing less quickly than expected and by the end of the year, prices are expected to have risen 5% meaning the average value of a home will reach nearly £260,000 by December.
The remortgage market is also expected to remain buoyant throughout the summer months and beyond. A trend which demonstrates how important it is for firms across the industry to successfully manage their ability to service this demand and capacity, especially during the summer holiday season when resources can sometimes be stretched.
This is where surveying firms in particular need to show operational excellence, resilience and the ability to adapt. Nothing short of this is acceptable.
As a company, we pride ourselves on the quality of our technology and our people. These elements are equally important in delivering exceptional service levels within any business peaks and troughs.
Whilst the pandemic impacted all our personal lives and business practices to varying degrees, it also taught us some valuable lessons.
From a business perspective, it has made us realise that we can quickly adapt, that challenging times should not inhibit innovation, just how vital our people are and how we need to ensure that we look after each other during the good and bad times.
From our field-based surveyors to our operational centre colleagues, across all teams, they are the veins that run through this business and they represent our excellence.
The heart of our business is the Centre of Operational Excellence based in Castle Donington; everything leads from here. The centre is the front door to our business, contributing to the touch points throughout the customer journey and the end point.
The opportunities throughout each journey are countless, every conversation, every action gives an opportunity to deliver excellence. The evidence of this excellence comes in our day to day activity, the great feedback we receive and all rubber stamped with our ISO27001 and 9001 accreditations.
I’m not saying that we always get it right, nobody does, yet excellence often emerges from adversity and this is certainly the case from both a technology and personnel standpoint within our business.
This is also the case for many firms operating in and around the intermediary market and this ongoing commitment to delivering innovation and operational excellence certainly bodes well for the industry over the rest of 2022 and beyond.
Kharla Mullen is chief operating officer at Countrywide Surveying Services
