iamproperty joins Open Property Data Association to push for faster, more transparent home transactions

Our take

This is a UK-focused industry story, but it carries a relevant signal for South African property professionals watching the global shift toward open, standardised property data. In South Africa, the home transaction process faces many of the same friction points — slow conveyancing, fragmented information, and limited data portability between agents, banks, and attorneys. Initiatives like OPDA demonstrate what becomes possible when banks, agents, and technology providers agree on shared data standards: faster transfers, fewer delays, and better-informed buyers and sellers. For SA proptech developers and estate agencies, the OPDA model is worth studying. South Africa already has frameworks like the Property Practitioners Act and POPIA that touch on data handling, but there is no equivalent open-data consortium coordinating standards across the transaction chain. Platforms like Liivra, which serve buyers, sellers, tenants, and agents, stand to benefit from — and could potentially help catalyse — similar collaboration locally. For now, this story is most relevant to SA proptech founders, agency principals, and conveyancers who are thinking about how digital transformation can reduce the weeks-long delays that frustrate buyers and sellers alike. The direction of travel is clear: open data standards are becoming the infrastructure of modern property markets.