Member Spotlight Interview: View My Chain

View My Chain sheds new light on the complex home buying process. With clear, honest, up-to-the-minute information of what’s happening in the chain empowers the proactive agent to complete faster than ever before. We sat down with Sohail Rashid, Co-Founder and CEO of View My Chain, who shares further insights into their moving home process, how they are using data to provide transparency and disruptions seen over the last 15 years in the property industry.

How does View My Chain improve the current home moving process?

View My Chain is a data-as-a-service solution that provides home movers, agents and conveyancers with real-time access to the connecting property chain for a house sale and updates on key milestones and events such as fall throughs, searches and mortgage applications. 55% of all sales are subject to a property chain and poor chain management is the key factor for all fall throughs, delays and poor experiences, aside from View My Chain there is no single source of this information available. We solve the problem of knowing who is in the chain and where the delays are.

Can you share more insight into how you are using data to provide transparency and what separates View My Chain from your competitors?

We are the largest aggregator of property chains in the UK and the key distributor of this data to the key stakeholders in the sector. As our core proposition is data and not software we do not require third parties to change workflow or adopt new processes to make it work. The View My Chain API enables anyone to have instant access and visibility of the key events and eliminates manual data collection, chasing and incorrect/misleading status updates.

The housing market can be challenging, how do you face these challenges and where do you think the industry is heading in the next 2-5 years?

I’ve operated in this space for the last 15 years and I’ve seen more positive disruption, digitalisation and progress in the last 3 years than the 12 years prior. I fully expect to see the next 3 years to follow that path. Yes the housing market can be slow moving and progress is tough to recognise but regardless of the economic climate people still need to move and it remains a strong British value to be a homeowner. I’m interested to see how we will deal with the growing demand and the impact of more Build to Rent investment coming through. With regards to the home moving process, I don’t think we have reached the tipping point yet, more needs to be done to make this a priority for all the key players. As a famous tech entrepreneur once said “ We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”