There is an uncomfortable question nobody seems willing to ask.
If the housing market is so obviously broken...
Why does it stay broken?
After all, it seems we know the problems.
We all know transactions take too long.
We know buyers and sellers suffer unnecessary stress for months at a time.
We know one in three sales still fail.
We know professionals across the sector are under increasing pressure and many have had enough.
We know consumers are completely at their wit's end.
We know businesses serving the property market are struggling.
And yet year after year, decade after decade, the same problems remain.
Why?
Because perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.
Perhaps the question isn't:
"Why hasn't the housing market been fixed?"
Perhaps the real question is:
"Who benefits from it remaining exactly as it is?"
The Most Dangerous Force in Any Industry
People often imagine that industries resist change because somebody is secretly pulling the strings.
The reality is usually much simpler.
And much more powerful.
Industries resist change because of misaligned, or nefarious, incentives.
If enough (powerful) people benefit from the current system, the current system endures.
Even when everybody agrees its flawed.
Even when consumers suffer endlessly.
Even when businesses struggle and are close to financial ruin.
Even when better alternatives exist.
The status quo develops its own "immune system".
Anything that threatens it is quietly rejected, or worse, silenced.
Not necessarily through malice.
Not necessarily through conspiracy.
But through the urgent need for self-preservation.
The Property Market's Greatest Contradiction
The property industry is full of organisations talking about reform.
Conferences discuss reform.
Reports outline reform.
Panels discuss reform.
Trade publications touch on the need for reform.
Industry leaders talk a great game about reform.
Everybody, on the surface, appears to agree that things need to improve.
Yet remarkably little changes.
Why?
Because talking about reform and actually delivering reform are two entirely different things.
One costs nothing, strokes people's ego and makes them sound benevolent.
The other threatens established interests.
And established interests rarely surrender willingly.
The People Feeling The Pain Are Not The People Holding The Power
Consider who experiences the consequences of a broken transaction.
The buyer.
The seller.
The estate agent.
The conveyancer.
The mortgage broker.
The professionals trying to hold transactions together.
They directly experience the frustration.
They know the stress firsthand - and they often take it home with them.
They experience the financial impact.
But many of the organisations sitting above the transaction experience very little, if any, of that pain themselves.
Their revenue continues regardless.
Their position remains secure.
Their influence remains intact.
So when there are no direct consequences for systemic failure, urgency to act disappears.
The Reform Industry
One of the strangest features of the property market is the existence of what might be called the reform industry.
You know what I mean - the endless cycle of:
Working groups.
Task forces.
Reports.
Round tables.
Consultations.
Industry discussions.
White papers.
Recommendations.
Announcements.
Promises.
The same conversations repeated year after year, and now decade after decade.
The same concerns raised repeatedly.
The same frustrations acknowledged.
The same promise of "putting the consumer first".
Yet bizarrely, the consumer experience has gone backwards over the last 20 years as the system has failed to evolve.
So, at some point, a difficult question has to be asked.
If everyone agrees there is a problem, why does the problem continue?
The Threat Nobody Talks About
The greatest threat to the status quo is not criticism - the industry is perfectly comfortable with criticism from the sidelines.
Many have been critiquing the home-moving process for decades whilst simultaneously failing to provide substantive action.
The greatest threat is real, workable, and efficient solutions.
Solutions that create accountability.
Solutions that expose excuses.
Solutions which show many of the problems accepted for years may not have been unavoidable after all.
That is why genuine reform and genuine solutions are repeatedly met with silence rather than exposure or debate.
Silence is safe.
Silence protects the existing order.
Silence allows the conversations to continue indefinitely without requiring any action.
Yet the consumer - the one paying everyone's wages - is hauled over the coals every time they try to move home.
The Cost of Looking the Other Way
Every year meaningful reform is delayed, people pay the price.
One million families a year pay the price financially, emotionally and mentally.
Property professionals pay the price with elevated stress levels, unpredictable cashflow and bearing the brunt of the fallout when the inevitable happens.
The financial cost is measured in tens of billions wasted each year.
The people carrying those costs deserve more than another watered down report from those too scared to act upon the advice they push out.
They deserve action.
The Difference Between Conversation And Change
The property industry has become exceptionally good at discussing its problems.
The real challenge is that consumers do not move home through discussion.
They move home through execution.
A solution that is implemented imperfectly is infinitely more valuable than a perfect solution that never leaves a committee room.
Yet too much of the industry remains trapped in paralysis of analysis instead of action.
Consumers do not need another explanation of why the system is broken.
They already know.
What they need is a path forward led by professional who care enough about them to do the right thing.
Why the Maverick Movement Exists
The Maverick Movement began with a simple belief:
True leadership does not preserve the status quo.
The purpose of leadership is to improve outcomes.
Especially where improvement is uncomfortable.
Especially when established interests object.
And especially when challenging accepted wisdom attracts criticism.
Real leadership is not measured by how effectively it protects existing systems.
It is measured by whether it leaves those systems better than it found them.
Paradoxically, everyone rooted for the underdog, Dave, in Bank of Dave when he chose to do the right thing and challenge the established order to better serve his community.
But when offered the opportunity to do the same for the property sector, many would-be champions of a better way shrink into the background.
The Question Nobody Can Avoid Forever
The housing market now stands at a crossroads.
One path leads to another decade of meaningless conversations about the possibilities of reform.
And the push for yet more regulation in a sector already overburdened by acts and statutes.
The other path is one of glorious action to lead the much-needed change from the front - unfettered by those who lack the ability to understand the true problems at the heart of the property market.
Innovation.
Entrepreneurship.
Leadership.
Accountability.
And genuine housing market reform.
The question is not whether change is possible.
The question is whether enough people are willing to challenge a system that has become very comfortable (and profitable for those at the top), remaining exactly as it is.
Because sooner or later, every industry in crisis must answer a simple question:
Are you solving the problem, or are you benefiting from it?
If you want to work alongside the do-ers and not the talkers and help lead the reform of the housing market, we encourage you to vent your frustrations about the current system below - then lets have a chat about how we fix them!