Recent research has found that over 40 per cent of us feel we are less productive at work when going through the process of purchasing a home. Your Move asked a cross section of purchasers who had just completed the home buying process about their experiences and in particular about the stress associated with the process of buying and how it affected their effectiveness at work.
Mike Ockenden, director general of AHIPP, says the forthcoming Home Information Packs regime will ease this upset. ‘The high levels of transaction failure and the extended period of uncertainty between offer and exchange of contracts in the current home buying and selling process is one of the most stressful times that consumers will endure in their lifetime,’ he says. ‘The introduction of Home Information Packs (HIPs) could considerably reduce the impact of stress, for both the consumer and for the economy.’
The house moving process famously ranks with divorce and bereavement as a source of severe stress. However, says Ockendon, ‘Incredibly we have simply learnt to accept this in the UK. In most European and Western countries, this is far from the norm.’
He finds the implications of such a sharp drop in productivity startling. ‘Even a very conservative analysis reveals that if a ten per cent loss of productivity is experienced by 40 per cent of all people involved in the house buying and selling process, the cost to the economy is over £500 million a year.’
HIPs will help this situation, he says, by gathering more information at the beginning of the buying process. ‘HIPs will undoubtedly have the benefit of reducing stress levels for home buyers and sellers across the UK, and as a result this could potentially translate into a huge benefit, not only for the consumer but for the wider economy.’