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‘Buying land is now a 24/7 industry’

By Staff Reporter
24 September 2021 | 11 minute read
Julian Coppini Darren Blair reb

A home-grown proptech platform is revolutionising land sales for the digital age.  

In April 2020, property services group Oliver Hume launched its Online Deposit Direct platform in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oliver Hume CEO Julian Coppini said the company had acted quickly to overcome restrictions and “pandemic-proof” their sales process.  

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The service allows buyers to pay deposits on new blocks of land without meeting a representative or visiting a sales office and has already notched up 850 online land transactions, accounting for 12 per cent of all Oliver Hume deals since its launch.

Explaining how Online Deposit Direct works, Mr Coppini said, “the platform creates a seamless transaction between the project website, CRM and interactive masterplan ensuring that inventory is always live and only available lots are able to be purchased”.

The CEO sees purchasing land as having evolved “from a physical exercise into a digital experience”, driven both by technology and changing buyer behaviours.

“Transactions are now taking place remotely online at any time, any day, anywhere – with some finalising their transaction between 12am and 6am in the morning.

“Buying land is now a 24/7 industry and digital platforms like our Online Deposit Direct are making sales more convenient, and safer, than ever.”

Oliver Hume head of operations for project marketing, Darren Blair, said the platform has been building momentum as digital transformation permeates most industries as a result of COVID-19.  

He said: “Online sales now represent a significant proportion of all our deals, and we expect them to become even more common in the future”.

With many buyers purchasing sight unseen in many cases, Mr Blair said the use of renders, interactive masterplans, and now online deposit functionality had driven land accessibility “in a way that it’s never been before”.

So much so that the head of operations said “purchasing a block of land can be done with confidence whilst watching the latest Netflix series.”

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