Property management has advanced over the years from the days of manually managing tenant applications, collecting rent, and responding to maintenance requests.
With more and more (SaaS) solutions, landlords and property managers can now streamline their operations and automate processes that used to take a long time.
Some of these processes and tasks include rent collection, maintenance requests, tenant referencing, general communication with tenants, and communication switch contractors.
In this article, we will explore the different ways that SaaS solutions can streamline property management, making it easier for landlords to calculate the return on investment of their property and even manage it too.
An Introduction to How Proptech Streamlines Property Management
Proptech has changed a lot of things including the letting and tenant onboarding process and the communication between tenants.
Another feature that is not a process that has made older processes more efficient but has been added in as a completely new feature of Saas and Proptech is the ability to produce business analytics through a property portfolio
Letting and tenant onboarding
First of all, property management software such as Lofti is able to automate the leads that they get from listing portals. Lofti is able to automate leads from Rightmove and Zoopla for instance.
Also, the letting and tenant onboarding process is made better by allowing the property manager or landlord to arrange viewings and receive holding deposits all through the app as well as having embedded tenancy referencing.
This means you can get organised through the calendar and send holding deposits and complete the entire process through one easy-to-manage place. Not only this but Lofti in particular are so sure of this process to produce good tenants that it is rent guarantee insurance compliant.
This protects landlords from rent arrears in the event that a tenant isn’t able to pay their rent.
A final point that software is advantageous for is tenancy creation. Property management softwares are able to create tenancy agreement templates that have all the correct sections and are able to comply with the law.
Communication and maintenance management
As part of maintenance management, with the introduction of Proptech software, tenants are able to upload videos and pictures straight to the app to be able to communicate what a problem is to their property management or landlord.
As well as this, a landlord is able to allocate a contractor to fix the issue within the app so the problem can be solved without having to communicate with any external sources.
Furthermore, a big problem with solving a maintenance request manually is that the progress of the issue is not updated frequently and if something takes too long or there is a problem this is often solved too late.
With SaaS Proptech, you will be able to receive notifications about the status of an issue every step of the way as it gets resolved.
Another great thing about communication is if the landlord wishes to view all of the maintenance issues all in one place to perhaps evaluate the costs and problems of a property over a period of time, all of the maintenance issues can be backdated and recorded.
In this sense, you get an added sense of organisation even if you don’t record everything manually yourself. This is ideal for those who want to save time and make sure they aren’t missing anything when they evaluate a portfolio.
Business Analytics
As part of business analytics, property management software is able to store the documents, rental contracts and safety certificates that keep a property able to be compliant for renting.
For example, at any time if a local authority asks for a document such as a gas safety certificate you are able to find and produce the document easily and swiftly. Perfect for staying on the right side of the law and making sure you’re following regulations
This also means that a landlord or property manager is able to renew the certificates & new assured tenancy shorthold (AST) agreements to stay compliant.
Furthermore, property management software allows you to look at the profitability of a portfolio in the short term and the long term.
For instance, a landlord can view the costs compared to the income of a single property month by month if they want to or they can look at their entire portfolio’s analytics. With access to industry KPIs and analytics like with Lofti, you’ll also be able to find out how a property compares to the average, helping optimize for results much like Multimo does in its functional furniture solutions.
How will Proptech Change in the Future?
There are some wild predictions among experts and the scope for the future varies depending on what source of information you go to. In addition, the timeline for when technology will take over varies quite a lot.
“If you have not made a change in your real estate business to ensure you have technical competency, you are way behind” – Elizabeth Mendenhall
Right now, most landlords use some form of property management software but when it will be that everyone uses it and it gets to the point where property managers and potentially letting agents will struggle to find a job because of how good technology is, time will tell.
The Introduction of AI to Proptech
As time goes on, many think that there will be an increase in the adoption of artificial intelligence in the property sector.
Perhaps landlords will be able to use AI in their software to be able to make predictions about the market and identify investment opportunities to stay ahead of any change and profit on any opportunity.
In this sense, it is clear that whoever is able to get into this market first will be able to have a competitive or first-mover advantage compared to all the other landlords.
On a more practical level, artificial intelligence could also help process communication between tenants and perhaps contractors so that tasks that have to be completed day to day such as rent collection, maintenance requests and lease renewals could all be automated.
Blockchain-Based Solutions
Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise the real estate industry by making transactions more transparent, secure, and efficient.
In the future, we can expect to see the emergence of blockchain-based solutions for property management, such as smart contracts for lease agreements and real estate investments being able to be controlled on the blockchain
“There are many ways we could use Blockchain technology in the real estate industry; purchasing real estate, recording transfer of ownership of real estate onto the Blockchain” – Ragnar Lifthrasir
To Conclude
In conclusion, the future of Proptech looks bright, with innovations such as AI, smart building technology, blockchain-based solutions, and virtual and augmented reality set to transform the real estate industry even further.
Right now, it is vital that landlords are able to take advantage of the technology that is available such as enhanced communication, tenant onboarding and business analytics that is already making a big change to the property industry.
