Proptech
News focusing on new technological solutions which create efficiencies and cost-savings for estate and letting agents and the wider residential property industry.
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Agents join short-lets brigade
Lavanda, the ‘super short-term’ rental platform, has launched Lavanda AGENT, enabling estate agents to tap into the super short-term rental market...
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Exclusive: Leading online letting agent ditches up-front fees for its premium service
Online letting agent Upad has abandoned its up-front fees for landlords who use its most expensive service. Called ‘Pay On Success’, it replaces its ‘Complete’ service which landlords used to pay up front for but, unlike traditional agents, now pay for only when tenants begin referencing. “We appreciate that landlords don’t come in one size and that, therefore, we shouldn’t offer one single pricing package,” says James Davis, Upad’s CEO (pictured, below). The new service is essentially the same as the old one. For £399 including VAT landlords get tenancy compliance, a landlords’ club, personal property expert, tenant enquiry handling service, referencing, contract and payment management and photos. Its two more basic services called ‘Standard’ and ‘Essential’ continue to be paid for up-front by landlords. “We continually review our service to landlords,” says James Davis. “This ensures that the options we provide to them not only meet their current needs but exceed expectations and allow us to stand-out compared to traditional high street agents. “The launch of our ‘Pay On Success’ package is one such innovation and has already been very positively received. “Early performance data shows that this package is proving twice as popular as the ‘Complete’ offer it…
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Virtual tours speed the move
It takes eight minutes for house-hunters to make their mind up about a property, according to a study by Foxtons.
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Housesimple secures £20m in growth capital
HouseSimple.com has secured a further £20m growth capital as it plans to build on its success and challenge PurpleBricks as the UK’s leading online estate agency.
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Round Hill Capital invests in Canopy
Canopy, an InsureTech company claims to be ‘re-engineering the property rental market’, has received further investment from Round Hill Capital, the real estate investment and management firm.
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Major UK agent signs up to rent empty properties via Airbnb
Franchised agency network Hunters is piloting a scheme in Manchester that will enable its landlord and vendor clients to rent out their properties via Airbnb and other short-term rental sites. The first properties to be offered for short-term rent are within Bracken House (pictured, right), a development of apartments within the city centre. The new service is a partnership with Lavanda.co.uk, which has launched an agent version of its property management service to facilitate the deal. Hunters says the Manchester pilot has been a “great success” and will be rolled across the national Hunters 200-branch network over the next 12 months. Properties must be let out for a minimum of two nights and will be managed by Lavanda including a furnishing service for empty properties, tenant vetting, hotel-style housekeeping, face-to-face check-ins and a 24-7 concierge service. Lavanda will also advertise the properties, it says, via all the major short-term rental websites including Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway and Expedia. “Much to the frustration of vendors, the recent slow sales market has led to swathes of prime property sitting empty,” says Guy Westlake, CEO of Lavanda (pictured, left). “This has not only resulted in landlords suffering a significant loss of income, but [for…
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Proptech firm claims it can help agents banish email ‘tyre kickers’
Estate agents will soon be able to automatically sort out the useful portal email leads from the tyre kickers following the launch of a new proptech service. OneDome says its OneLead product will enable estate agents to respond instantly to any buyer or vendor email enquiry coming in from Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket and work out which kind of customer they are and then direct them to either a valuations or viewings booking page. The system generates an automated reply answer to an email enquiry depending on the information within it, helping agents answer them more quickly and filtering out the ‘chaff from the wheat’, it is claimed. OneDome says Rightmove’s own figures show that 65% of vendor and buyer leads from the portals arrive out of hours. “Consumer expectations are greater than ever and they expect instant gratification,” says OneDome CEO Babek Ismayil (pictured, left). “When sending an enquiry form from a portal, buyers often get a slow response or no reply at all because agents find that many of the enquiries they get from portals are low quality, or worse, spam. “This discourages agents from responding and unfortunately, this means that high quality enquiries are missed.” The company…
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Lettingweb leads Model Tenancy Agreement ‘2.0’
Lettingweb, the independent marketplace for rental properties in Scotland, is spearheading the use of a new standard tenancy agreement which builds on the Government’s ambitions to create an effective, secure and stable private rented sector.
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Does yesterday’s Goodlord staff clearout include its CEO?
Richard White, the founder and CEO of online rental viewings and digital tenancy processing company Goodlord is about to leave the company, it has been reported. The news comes just a day after it was announced Goodlord has let 40 of its employees go, reducing its headcount down to 96 from 136. 31-year-old Richard, who is both a director and company secretary of Oh Goodlord Ltd, started out in the property industry as a Foxtons negotiator before moving to lettings company Capital Living. He then founded and helped raise £2m in start-up cash plus a further £7.2 million in March last year. At the time Richard told The Negotiator that he would be spending the extra cash on expanding the company’s headcount, and that Goodlord had signed up several big names to its service including Strutt & Parker. The company currently says its has 365,000 landlords and tenants who have used its service, and processed 151,000 tenancies. But Goodlord’s management would appear to have taken it in a new direction following the reduction in staff this week. Richard White’s reported imminent departure has been predicted on website Techcrunch, which also says Goodlord’s CTO Andrew Done may also be leaving the…
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RICS launches PropTech insight paper
RICS has published an insight paper on tech revolution and the future of residential property, examining what PropTech means for the residential property sector...
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