Arguably, the most revealing statistic in the latest OPDA report – The Future of Homebuying 2026 – is not that transactions take too long or that more than half fall through after an offer has been accepted. It’s that 43% of consumers believe the biggest cause of delays is having to chase updates and wait for responses from other parties.

That finding tells us that the frustration many consumers feel is not solely linked to the time a transaction takes but also from a lack of visibility into exactly what is happening during that time.

People understand that buying a home is a complex process involving mortgage brokers, lenders, conveyancers, surveyors and estate agents. What they struggle with is the sense that progress often disappears behind closed doors. Once an application, search or enquiry has been submitted, there is often little indication of where things stand, who owns the next action or what is preventing the transaction from moving forward.

This is important as people do not experience a property transaction in separate stages, they experience it as one journey. The boundaries between organisations may be clear to those working within the industry, but they are largely invisible to the consumer. When communication breaks down, information needs to be resubmitted or decisions appear to stall, the entire process feels inefficient regardless of where the issue originated.

The report’s finding that 66% of people have been put off moving again should therefore act as a real wake up call for every organisation involved in any given property transaction. This is no longer simply a question of customer satisfaction, confidence in the process itself is being affected.

The government’s recent homebuying and selling reforms appear to recognise this challenge. While much of the focus has understandably been on reducing transaction times and fall-throughs, many of the proposed measures are also designed to improve the quality, availability and flow of information throughout the transaction, helping to create a more transparent experience for consumers.

Much of the industry’s effort to date has focused on improving individual parts of the journey. Lenders have invested heavily in digitisation and automation. Conveyancers continue to explore ways to reduce delays and improve efficiency. These improvements are certainly helping, but they do not always solve the wider challenge facing consumers when it comes to understanding where their transaction stands at any given moment. Therefore, the industry cannot afford to focus solely on speed while overlooking the importance of visibility.

Achieving that visibility depends on greater transparency in how information is shared and managed across the transaction. The OPDA report found that almost two-thirds of respondents were asked to provide the same information two or three times, while nearly one in five were asked four or five times. Repetition on that scale is often a sign that data is not moving effectively between participants, creating unnecessary friction and increasing the likelihood of delays.

Consumers increasingly expect a different experience. In many areas of daily life, they can see progress in real time, understand what actions are outstanding and receive updates without having to ask. Property transactions remain one of the few major financial commitments where people are frequently left piecing together information from multiple sources in an attempt to understand what is happening.

The answer is not to generate more emails, notifications or status reports, most consumers are not looking for constant communication. They simply want confidence that progress is being made, clarity about what comes next and reassurance that the information they have already provided is available to those who need it.

A more connected digital workflow can help achieve that. When participants are working from the same trusted information and have a shared view of progress, visibility improves naturally. Consumers spend less time chasing updates, professionals along the property chain spend less time responding to them and everyone involved has a clearer understanding of what is required to move the transaction forward.

The industry will continue to focus on reducing transaction times, and rightly so. However, the latest OPDA findings suggest that speed alone is not the measure consumers care about most. A process can move quickly and still feel frustrating if progress is difficult to see. Equally, a transaction that encounters unavoidable delays can still inspire confidence when expectations are clear and information is readily available.

The future of homebuying will be shaped not only by how efficiently transactions move, but by how visible they are to the people going through them.

Andrew Vaughan, head of customer management at e4 Strategic