Buoyant long-term prospects for the Australian property market augur well for the nation’s conveyancing industry, despite some downside risks on the horizon.
The conveyancing industry, in line with past experience, is likely to have its short and long-term future heavily influenced by the property market. In the short term, the four major banks – CBA, Westpac, ANZ and NAB – forecast that interest rates will start to ease in late 2024, which should encourage home sales and housing starts and be positive for the nation’s conveyancing industry.
Looking further ahead, triSearch, an Australian SaaS provider which offers an all-in-one conveyancing solution, points to history as a predictor of long-term industry resilience.
“If history has anything to say, Australians will continue to invest in property as seen in the early 2010’s when interest rates fluctuated around six per cent,” triSearch says.
“Therefore, the conveyancing industry will continue to display the resilience it showed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fran Andrews from the Australian Institute of Conveyancers’ Western division agrees that the long-term health of the Australian industry may be positive, saying that the future is “very much in our own hands in a number of ways”.
Andrews points to long-term issues that tie into the outlook for the industry, with a big one being the role of technology.
In the same way that household living will be ever more impacted by technological change, she says a similar rapid advancement is underway in conveyancing.
“After years of being idle, our industry is now advancing technologically at a rate that many long-term conveyancers would not have imagined,” she says.
“Electronic conveyancing has revolutionised the way we do business and has enabled, or expediated, conveyancers’ and other players’ online presence.
“We have an abundance of settlement software programs that are new to market or updating their wares so we are using seamless, time-efficient programs that allow us to focus on our most important asset, our clients.”
However, Andrews is confident there will always be a role for humans in the process. She says while technology will “always have its place in streamlining processes” for people “in what is likely to be the biggest financial commitment of their lives, the human touch is very reassuring to our clients”.
Another change will be driven by demographics, she says. In particular, she points to the “ageing” of the sector, which will see many participants “continue to retire, or sell to large companies”.
“Whether this is a positive or negative change is likely to be the personal view of the individual. It is likely that the industry landscape will change over the coming years and the long-term effect will be fewer, larger firms.”
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