upad
-
Guest Blogs
Upad boss: traditional letting agents will soon go the way of Yellow Pages
Not only has our food, cars, insurance, retail shopping, and just about anything else you can think of been propelled forward into a technology-driven world. And so too has property. As companies like Amazon and Uber dominating their markets, so they are transforming the way customers buy goods and services. And now there’s proptech, the coined phrase for the collision of the property and technology worlds. This means landlords can no longer rely on outdated methods of finding people to rent their homes. Tenants, particularly those under 30 years old who are the largest demographic in the market, are searching online for their next home, not in agent’s shop windows. This shift not only paves the way for online agents like Upad it also means landlords need to become technology-savvy and up their game. Much as the Yellow Pages is a thing of the past, so traditional lettings services will soon be too as landlords turn to more manageable and cost-effective solutions for promoting their rental properties. Our research shows 92% of tenants go online to search for their next rental home and 91% said good photos where their number one concern. In a technology driven world, we want information…
Read More » -
Latest property news
New proptech consultancy launches, with familiar names
PropTech specialists, James Dearsley and Eddie Holmes, have launched www.proptechconsult.com to help property companies overcome the challenges brought by digital transformation.
Read More » -
Latest property news
Former Rightmove tech boss joins online letting agent
Online-only lettings agency Upad has bagged James Micklethwait, former head of product development at Rightmove, as an advisory board member. Micklethwait (pictured, left) was responsible for a 100-strong tech team at Rightmove and headed up the portal’s product development. He left Rightmove in September last year after a two-and-a-half-year stint at the portal. Before that he spent three years at broadcaster ITV and before that nearly eight years at the BBC. “Since leaving Rightmove I have been drawn to areas where I believe technology has the greatest potential to change our industry,” says James. “In my view, lettings is one of those areas and I am very impressed with what James and the Upad.co.uk team have achieved to date. I look forward to helping the company achieve its ambitious growth plans.” James Davis, (pictured, right) CEO of Upad, says: “With our latest figures suggesting that over 90% of UK tenants now start their rental search online, optimising the digital customer journey is imperative. James has unsurpassed expertise in this field, specifically relating to property searchers.” Upad, which was set up ten years ago by Davis, has also appointed a further big brain to its board – Eddie Holmes of PropTech…
Read More » -
Latest property news
Online-only letting agency founder attacks Gumtree
Online only letting agent founder James Davis has launched a scathing attack on UK classifieds portal Gumtree. The site, which was established in 2000, is a significant player in the lettings sector with over 66,000 properties currently on its site, around three quarters of which are in London. Davis (pictured), whose Upad portal currently lists 880 property with Zoopla, says in a blog for a landlord website that that although still popular, he asks whether Gumtree is “about to be left behind as spam, adverts, and unreliable tenant leads flood its user base”. “Due to a laxer approach to posts and how they are moderated, [it] has become inundated with spammy and out-of-date ads,” he says. He also criticises its lack of sophistication, comparing it unfavourably to Rightmove and Zoopla’s refined user experience and highlighting Gumtree’s lack of local search functionality. The Upad CEO also thinks size matters. Davis criticises Gumtree because it “only attracts a small fraction of housing stock on the market at any one time”. Davis also questions the quality of Gumtree’s users. “Research by Upad found that the quality of enquiries from Gumtree users was lower than enquiries made via the leading online property portals,” he…
Read More »
