Spike Global is continuing to grow its presence in the Northern BTR sector thanks to its latest partnership with property developer and professional landlord, Livingway. It’s market-leading tenant engagement portal, Spike Living, has already been rolled out across more than 200 developments in the UK, as the company continues to expand its foothold throughout the North of England.
Spike Global has worked with Livingway to create a white labelled version of its Spike Living portal that is now available to all tenants across its portfolio of purpose-built rental developments in Liverpool, Leeds, Stockport, Manchester, Bolton and Aberdeen.
The portal, which can be accessed through a smartphone app, will allow Livingway to simplify and streamline the day-to-day management of its buildings, helping its tenants to stay better connected and allow staff to manage enquiries and maintenance requests more efficiently. The portal will also enable Livingway to promote and connect tenants to their local area, provide discounts on local businesses, as well as offering the opportunity to create online clubs and forums, helping to instil a real sense of community.
Spike Global’s CEO, Jeremy Heath-Smith, comments: “The BTR sector has been one of the industry’s fastest growing sectors in recent years, and where city centre living has always commanded a premium, northern cities with their booming enterprise are a compelling investment opportunity. Livingway’s ethos is that renting should be a lifestyle choice, rather than a subpar alternative to home ownership, and Spike Global’s award-winning Spike Living portal is bringing the tenant experience into the 21st century. Our solutions are designed to empower tenants to build connections with their neighbours, communicate with the management team and form a closeknit community, all from their fingertips.”
Samantha Hay, CEO at Livingway, added: “Having explored many of the other tenant apps and communication tools on the market, we felt that there was nothing that provided the functionality and ease that Spike Living could. Having the ability to completely white label the portal was an important factor for us, ensuring that it ties into our brand and values. We are also able to easily integrate other platforms that we are using which means that we have one app as opposed to two or three!”
Tenants who are engaged with their local community are often happier than those who are not, so connecting tenants to one another and allowing them to form meaningful relationships with their local community has now become a necessity rather than just a luxury.
It’s also far more cost-effective to retain happy tenants. Average turnover costsfor an apartment within the industry is around £1,200, however this number can often be significantly higher, depending on a wide variety of factors specific to the property.
Although turnover to some degree is inevitable, in many instances, developments lose tenants because the living experience falls short of their expectations. Property managers should be striving to encourage tenants to consider the entire building as their home instead of limiting the idea to just their apartment.
While it’s relatively easy to provide trendy amenities, great designs, and flashy décor, what really attracts tenants to a building, and keeps them staying year after year, is creating a sense of community and belonging that supports their wellbeing.
Why Engage With the Community?
When a new tenant moves into a building, they may be unfamiliar with the surrounding area. Connecting them with others in the building, local shops and services, or details that can bring convenience to their lives is a great way of ensuring tenants feel engaged from the offset. Many of our clients team up with the local businesses to offer exclusive discounts to their tenants on anything from cleaning services, dog walkers to local restaurants.
Holding regular social events is also an important way in allowing friendships between tenants to blossom – whether that’s online or in person. Research by Apartment Life found that the more friends a tenant has within their building, the more likely they are to renew their tenancy. Without any friends living in their community, tenants only have a 29% chance of renewing. That number jumps to 38% if they have 1-3 friends, and if they have 7 or more friends, there’s a 47% likelihood that they’ll renew. Facilitating safe and easy communication among members of the community allows people to get to know each other more easily.
The Power of Community
Investing in developing a community not only enhances the tenant experience – it can also lead to better outcomes. Tenants are more likely to behave in a way that benefits the collective good if they feel an attachment to the people, place and community in which they live.
Although the link between a sense of community and pro-environment behaviours is an under-researched area, there is evidence that supports these observations. Fostering a sense of community and attachment to a place and to others increases the effectiveness of behaviour change campaigns in relation to both energy saving and recycling, for example.
This is because when individuals feel that they belong to a community or want to fit in to that community, and their identity is partly attached to it, they are more likely to act in a way that benefits the collective good.
The Role Technology Can Play in Engaging Tenants
Tenant engagement portals such as Spike Living can help to foster a sense of community and attachment, as well as empower tenants by providing relevant, relatable information. Research highlights that the presentation of data in terms of direct energy units such as kWh or in terms of CO2 emissions is difficult for users to understand.
However, a tenant engagement portal that can present usage information in relation to others, demonstrate impact and employ gamification techniques to motivate tenants is more effective at creating engagement and driving change. Whilst a tenant might look at their smart meter and not grasp what a kilowatt-hour is, showing that they are using more energy than their neighbours will make them instantly better informed. Examples include the amount of energy used compared with others living in a similar sized apartment in the building, the amount of carbon used in a 10-minute shower, or how much energy is saved by turning the heating down by one click.
Furthermore, having the ability to send out personalised, weather-appropriate tips to help tenants reduce consumption, as well as keeping the community engaged with useful information, can make cutting their carbon footprint seem like a positive achievement rather than an enforced misery. This mixture of education and competition creates a feedback loop of positive reinforcement that will keep the issue front of mind.
At the end of last year, Spike Global, ASK4 and Utopi released Changing Behaviours, a joint research report highlighting how working to change the behaviour of tenants can reap significant rewards. For example, strategies that tap into the natural human instinct to conform to social norms – such as providing feedback on consumption and comparison with others – can result in behaviour changes that reduce carbon emissions in the region of 7%-35%. And that’s just according to some more conservative estimates.
The report also explores and investigates the reasons why tenants, despite good intentions, behave in ways that are often at odds with these values. The reasons why tenants often fail to follow up on values with concrete actions are many and varied – ranging from feeling powerless to making a difference (especially when others around them are not doing the ‘right’ thing), a lack of comfort, a mistrust that their accommodation provider is genuine and authentic in their sustainability efforts. A lack of information on personal consumption in comparison to others also plays a crucial role.
Summary
As the BTR sector continues to grow at pace, tenant engagement will play an increasingly important role in retaining tenants as well as driving down carbon emissions.
You can learn more about the role that community can play in achieve net zero and other sustainability targets by downloading our Changing Behaviours Report below.
Spike Global, the leading property management and resident engagement software provider, has ventured into suburban residential living, thanks to its latest client, Lancashire-based developer, Baxter Homes. Spike Global will provide a white labelled version of its Spike Living portal to residents across the Baxter developments.
The family-owned developer will be rolling out the software across its portfolio of 3 developments, starting at Oak Hill Rise, a new 86-home scheme of houses and bungalows in Garstang, Lancashire. The roll-out will then expand to take in more than 500 properties over several small schemes, including Pinfold Place and Granary Fields, maintained by Baxter’s in-house Baxter Estates management company.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Baxter Homes. Residents moving into the high-quality bungalows and houses built by Baxter Homes will find the portal easy and intuitive to use, and full of useful features as they get to know the local area.”
Baxter Homes’ Managing Director, Callum Baxter explained why he chose to work with Spike Global: “We were looking for a way to manage our future maintenance and management company, as well as how we could improve our overall buying journey with increased aftercare. We pay a lot of attention to our purchasers during the buying and completion phase, but we wanted to keep that going with strong aftercare, and Spike offered a great solution.”
Baxter Homes is known for treating its customers as individuals, so a resident engagement platform that could be fully customised to suit each development was a good fit for the company. “We focus on quality, working with our purchasers to create their dream homes,” continues Callum Baxter.
“At the moment, this can create files full of information – the idea is that through using the Spike Living portal we can make our purchasers’ and future residents’ lives far easier. It will be where all of their key information is stored, but beyond that we also expect it to become an interactive social hub, where new residents can get to know their neighbours and the local area, helping them to settle in.”
Jeremy Heath-Smith added: “Spike Living not only has practical uses like giving easy access to paperwork and an instant way to report snagging issues, it also provides a channel through which residents can choose to get to know each other, arrange social groups and events and make the most of offers from local businesses.”
Latest research has revealed that encouraging residents to make more sustainable decisions in their accommodation can help to reduce a building’s carbon emissions by up to 35%. An independent study entitled Changing Behaviours, conducted in collaboration by ASK4, Utopi and Spike Global, investigates the behaviour of residents living across a range of residential housing to determine how their energy use can affect net zero targets. The research focuses on the barriers currently preventing residents making a switch to more sustainable behaviours, the importance of education, and the role behavioural science and technology can play in reducing energy consumption.
The research reveals that 65% of millennials and 70% of Gen-Z, would be prepared to make major changes to their own lifestyles to combat climate change. The report also looks into the challenges the wider residential sector faces when it comes to energy efficacy and examines the best methods to reduce excess energy consumption. Strategies that encourage residents to conform to the wider group can be used to promote sustainable behaviour too. Delivering energy usage statistics and data directly to the end user in comparison to their neighbours’ energy consumption can result in a more considered approach to the amount of energy they use, ultimately leading to a reduction in carbon emissions.
As part of the research, Utopi compared two identical electrically heated student flats, one of which was heated between 18-22 degrees Celsius, with the other heated between 25-30 degrees. At the end of a six-month period, data revealed that the overheated flat used 1670% more electricity – equivalent to an additional £1474, or 1.65 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Ben Roberts, Co-Founder & CMO of Utopi comments: “Excess energy consumption is a longstanding source of frustration within the residential market, and in particular within the PBSA sector which is why it’s crucial to communicate residents’ own energy use in a way that is clear and easy to understand. For example, students will often open a window or turn on a fan before turning down the heating, leading to unnecessary waste. Our own research reveals a real need to balance student freedom of behaviour with the need to meet carbon emissions and energy costs targets, and it is clear that turning the heating down by just a few degrees can save hundreds of pounds and reduce our carbon footprint.”
Jonny Wootten, Marketing Director at Spike Global, comments: “Industry net zero targets are inextricably linked to residents’ own energy and water consumption. As we enter a cost of living and ecological crisis there is a real emphasis on how we begin the conversation to empower residents to take positive action and reduce their energy waste. Not everyone may fully understand all the jargon, such as what a kilowatt hour means. We use resident portals to engage and educate residents directly, in a way that’s easy to understand.”
The report found that turning the heating up by three points in an average apartment can double the amount of electricity consumed. This poses a serious challenge for the PBSA sector, which relies on the ‘all-inclusive bills’ model to attract students. While 70% of students found all-inclusive bills to be a key desirability factory in their property search, damning data shows that students use up to 35% more electricity than accommodation where utilities are billed separately.
Jess Glover, Head of Marketing at ASK4, comments: “Clearly there is an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude. There is a stark need for education in the PBSA sector, and the solution begins with raising awareness of residents’ energy use via easy to access data.”
This data helps residents recognise and understand their patterns of energy and water usage, and crucially compare their results to others. As one resident cited in the research: “we can only know [how to reduce our consumption] if they make us aware of [it] and the operators don’t do that”. The research found that this approach is most successful when data is presented in an empowering manner that is easy, attractive, timely and social. One resident added: “You need to compare with something or someone. Without comparison of how you are doing, you don’t know how to interpret your usage.”
Furthermore, there is mounting evidence to suggest that investing in developing a community not only enhances the resident experience – it can also lead to better outcomes. Research revealed that residents will behave in a way that benefits the collective if they feel attracted to where they live. If people feel like they are part of a wider community tackling climate change, they are more likely to join the movement. The use of resident portals offers an effective way to foster a sense of belonging within a building.
Jonny Wootten adds: “Resident portals can be customised to include handy tips such as location of recycling bins, alongside energy use messaging, making it easy for residents to make small sustainable changes to the way they live. Pair this with personalised messaging to motivate the end user, and timely prompts are provided when residents are most likely to be receptive, and residentially providers could make great strides to meet their own ESG targets”
With the Build to Rent sector expected to increase fivefold over the next decade, operators will need to ensure that they have the right technology in place to meet the growing expectations and demands of residents.
It’s not only residents that benefit – The Samanage State of Workplace Survey found that workers spend an average of 520 hours a year on repetitive services and tasks that could easily be automated. Having effective property management software in place can help alleviate redundant tasks, reduce inefficiency, and put more productive hours into your property manager’s day.
With that in mind, here are the top five features your Residents’ Portal should have:
1. Maintenance Management
One of the most time-consuming parts of a property manager’s job is the handling of maintenance issues, and without an easy and simple way for residents to report them, maintenance problems can often go unreported, with seemingly small problems at risk of turning into serious repairs.
Having a residents’ portal like Spike Living in place can speed up the reporting of issues, with residents able to quickly provide maintenance staff with a clear picture of the task ahead, and even attach photos of the issue so maintenance staff can diagnose the fault ahead of time, increasing the likelihood of fixing the issue in their first visit.
Property managers can also benefit from Spike Living’s powerful reporting module, allowing them to spot any building-wide issues to do with material defectives or poor workmanship such as faulty taps or leaking showers.
2. Bookings Tool
With onsite gyms, games rooms, dining spaces, and a host of other amenities becoming the new norm in residential developments, having an easy way for residents to book and interact with these spaces without requiring staff interaction increases the probability of them being used. Feedback gained by HomeViews for their 2021 Build to Rent report gave examples where residents were frustrated about having to email reception to book onsite amenities, which makes accessing them a lot more laborious than it needs to be.
Having the ability to access a residents’ portal via a smartphone app allows a room to be booked with a few taps, turning what could be a cumbersome process into a seamless experience. Furthermore, these spaces can also be chargeable, with payments being taken at the time of booking, helping to increase additional revenue for an operator.
Finally, on-site staff are likely already running regular social events for residents. With Spike Living, community managers can communicate and promote the details of the event, and drive all bookings via the residents’ portal, providing an easy way to understand how many residents to expect and helping to understand what events are getting the most engagement.
3. Parcel Management Solution
Although often overlooked, parcel rooms and delivery management solutions play an important role in the resident experience, with 13% of reviews specifically talking about how useful this was in the 2022 HomeViews Report.
With Spike Living, staff scan packages as they arrive which then sends a notification to the relevant resident informing them that a package is ready to be collected. This saves staff from having to manually message residents individually.
What’s more, Spike has formed a strategic alliance with Quadient, a major global parcel locker operator and leading customer communications technology provider. By integrating Parcel Pending by Quadient lockers into the Spike Living portal, there is no need for residents to have two separate apps if their building has lockers installed. Instead, residents will receive a notification through the Spike Living portal with a unique code to gain access to their parcel, giving them peace of mind that their package is secure.
4. Streamline Resident Communication
Great communication between residents and property managers is important to making everyone feel welcome. Property managers should consider the effectiveness of sending emails and physical flyers which can be easily ignored. Instead, having a residents’ portal that allows for push notifications to be sent directly to a resident’s mobile phone is a more effective way of keeping residents updated and engaged.
Feedback gained by HomeViews for their 2021 Build to Rent report found that residents that had previous experience using resident portals instantly recognised how useful they would be in their new buildings. Residents who did not have access to a portal also believed it would help issues be resolved quicker.
The benefits aren’t just in allowing residents to have instant access to property managers, resident portals also provide property managers with an opportunity to be proactive, such as notifying residents when a lift is out-of-service, promoting onsite events, or more importantly, sending out an urgent push notification informing tenants within minutes about an immediate danger, such as a fire in their block, so they can take the necessary action like evacuating the building.
Creating ongoing, positive touchpoints with your residents helps you to build a sense of belonging, improve resident satisfaction, and increase the likelihood of renewals.
5. Community Engagement
Research by Apartment Life found that the more friends a resident has within a building, the more likely they are to renew their tenancy. Without any friends living in their community, residents only have a 29% chance of renewing. That number jumps to 38% if they have 1-3 friends, and if they have 7 or more friends, there’s a 47% likelihood that they’ll renew.
Spike Living allows residents to create their own clubs and forums, allowing residents to find like-minded people who share similar interests. We’ve seen residents start their own book clubs, and even arrange communal BBQs and beer tasting classes, to questions being asked on utilities and hairdresser recommendations to where to find the best pint.
Unlike traditional social media, Spike Living can be building-specific, enabling residents to meet like-minded people in their building, without being at risk from scammers and strangers. By utilising the ‘around me’ feature, much-needed visibility can be provided to smaller businesses, encouraging residents to explore what’s on their doorsteps. Property Managers can also partner with local shops and restaurants to offer residents exclusive discounts and incentives, all via their residents’ portal.
Summary
As the Build to Rent sector continues to grow at pace, it has become imperative that operators have the right property management solutions in place.
By providing a centralised platform to manage all residents’ needs whether that’s handling package deliveries, booking the onsite amenities, or raising maintenance issues, this ensures operators are providing a level of service that residents have become used to and now expect. With an average engagement rate of 87% across its portals, Spike Living is proven to help residents truly live their best lives.
Recognising this significant issue, Empiric Student Property PLC (“Empiric”), a leading provider and operator of student accommodation, has partnered withresident engagement and property management software provider Spike Global, to help facilitate strong and supportive communities across its 9,000-bed portfolio.
Empiric’s portfolio ranges from purpose-built accommodation to redeveloped offices and public buildingsin prime locations across 29 of the UK’s top university towns and cities, including Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds and Oxford. With 50% of Empiric’s student residents now coming from overseas – a group which often struggles the most to integrate – the companyhas launched a white-labelled version of Spike Living across all 80 of its accommodation sites atthe start of this academic year. The user-friendly portal sits as part of its Hello Student brand, which connects Empiric’s entire portfolio under one centralised platform.
Acting as a ‘one stop shop’, the app provides a multitude of features, but crucially enables students to connect with their neighbours and form interest and support groups, as well as organise their own events to get to know each other, helping them feel at home at a time that many can find stressful. As the app is building-specific and only available to genuine residents, it provides a safer, more personal and more local experience than conventional social media, helping students to make genuinely like-minded contacts and friends, both virtually and face-to-face.
As well as the social aspects of Spike Living, the app also provides instant communication with the Hello Student onsite team, making it easier for overseas students, in particular. Residents can book the onsite amenities, organise a parcel collection, report a fault or check on rental payments, anytime and anywhere, offering a game-changing ease of communication on both sides. The app is also home to upcoming events listings, useful local guides and exclusive promotions.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, comments: “We are extremely proud to be working with Empiric across all its Hello Student sites, and we share an understanding of the importance of accommodation that is not only comfortable, but also supports the social and mental health needs of students. Empiric’s premium accommodation provides a great base from which to enjoy the university adventure, and Spike Living will help students cope with both the social and practical challenges of living independently, by providing a straightforward way to navigate and make the most of their new home.”
Gemma Le Marquer, Sales and Marketing Director at Empiric comments: “It is particularly important to us that our residents can fully experience all that university life has to offer, and really feel the benefits of a strong student community. We have joined forces with Spike Global, who share our values and market goals, to provide the Spike Living portal at every one of our developments to help residents make the most of this significant life experience.”
The UK annual rental growth has now reached a 14-year high, with the average lettings agent processing in excess of 127 new applicants each month, according to a recent survey by PropertyMark.
With such an increase in demand for rental properties, landlords and managing agents are under pressure to process each application as quickly and efficiently as possible. With the average tenant application taking up to several days to review, process and approve, often requiring a large number of manual steps, from performing credit checks, gathering various information on the prospective tenant to physically issuing paper contracts and waiting for both parties to sign, this can cause a lot of unnecessary stress and delays for prospective tenants eagerly waiting to hear if they have secured the property they want.
It doesn’t have to be this way – end-to-end tenancy management solutions like Spike Lettings can take the stress and strain out of the rental experience for both tenants and landlords or managing agents.
Spike Lettings streamlines and simplifies the initial process of moving into a rental property, empowering prospective tenants to easily find and reserve their ideal apartment straight from their phones. And because all the information about available properties is live and constantly updated, even when routed through third-party sites like Zoopla or Rightmove, tenants avoid the crushing disappointment of finding that every property they enquire about has already gone.
From a property management point of view, using Spike Lettings eliminates many of the manual processes that come about when someone phones and enquires about a rental property – instead, residents can do a lot of the work themselves online.
From the marketing of available properties, taking initial payments and reservations, sending and signing contracts and approving references, to managing the ongoing management once tenants have moved in, the whole process can now be performed digitally, reducing costs, and creating a seamless and stress-free experience for both parties. Spike Lettings also integrates with a number of third party finance management systems to automate the raising of monthly rent invoices, eliminating the time staff need to spend performing administrative tasks and allowing them to focus on value-add activities.
Once moved in, the advantages continue with the Spike Living resident engagement portal, where tenants can view financial information such as rent or see their payment history, book amenities, interact with their neighbours and much more, all via a smartphone app.
Meanwhile, property managers can review business-boosting information from the reporting aspects of Spike Lettings, allowing them to easily access reports, such as rent achieved, voids and debtors. This can be done for individual buildings and across a whole portfolio. They can also see at a glance, on our assets dashboard, the number of properties reserved, occupied and unoccupied, showing which property types are more popular, as well as viewing the scheduled move-ins and move-outs for that week or month. Key tenant information such as gender, age and salary can be captured and used to ensure relevant services and events are provided within a development, even allowing for tenant communications to be tailored based on certain demographics.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, comments: “Finding and securing a rental property, especially for the many graduates who will be looking at the moment, can be a really stressful experience.”
“We believe the whole process can be made significantly less confusing and less stressful by digitalising the entire applicant journey, so that prospective tenants can view the progression of their tenancy in real-time, communicate with the lettings team, sign contracts, and make payments, all online. Spike Lettings can even guide tenants through the process by giving examples of accepted documentation and a constant update on which documents still need to be produced, avoiding frustrating hold-ups for both the managing agent and perspective tenant.”
Industry-leading property management and resident engagement software provider, Spike Global, is pleased to announce it has formed a strategic alliance with Quadient, a major global parcel locker operator and leading customer communications technology provider, to streamline the delivery of packages via its award-winning Spike Living portal.
With global online retail sales expected to reach £515 trillion by 2023*, and an increasing volume of packages now being delivered to homes, this forward-thinking alliance has been formed to simplify and enhance delivery to residents.
Parcel Pending by Quadient lockers provide a secure, contact-free way for residents to collect their packages. Whether they are working from home, commuting, or running errands, parcel lockers make packages available 24/7 so they can be collected at a time that suits the resident.
By integrating Parcel Pending by Quadient lockers into the Spike Living portal, there is no need for residents to have two separate apps if their building has lockers installed. Instead, residents will receive a notification through the Spike Living app with a unique code to gain access to their parcel, giving them peace of mind that their package is secure.
Not only do parcel lockers offer convenience for residents, but they also provide benefits for property managers – not least through relieving them of the burden of dealing with the fall-out from lost, stolen or damaged parcels. Deliveries are made directly to the parcel locker by a shipping carrier agent, eliminating the need for intervention by a staff member – saving time and cutting operational costs. As the recent rise in the volume of packages being delivered to homes shows no signs of slowing down, mailrooms are at risk of being overwhelmed. Having lockers in place can reduce the need for large mailrooms, with the space being put to better use.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, comments: “The alliance with Quadient will help streamline the delivery of packages for residents across the country. With the backdrop of growth in the e-commerce industry, we are thrilled to be working with Quadient to offer this service to our clients.”
Ian Caminsky, SVP & MD Parcel Locker Solutions, Quadient, adds: “People grew accustomed to ordering items to their homes during the pandemic, and it’s proving a permanent shift for many of us. The strategic alliance streamlines the process for residents with a unified solution, simplifying and enhancing package delivery. This minimises the amount of digital clutter to give the best possible experience to residents picking up their parcels.”
The Spike Living portal is perfectly tailored to each individual building and its facilities, providing residents with one simple, intuitive portal that allows them to communicate with the management and with each other – making life easier in a multitude of ways. From booking laundry services, reporting a maintenance issue, the portal makes routine communication quick and easy. Not just for the practical things in life – Spike Living can also help new residents to meet each other, make friends, find activities and get to know their local area by receiving targeted offers and discounts from nearby businesses. With the additional option of integrating parcel lockers, it is now more useful than ever.
Property managers spend their days constantly prioritising, and then re-prioritising their ‘to do’ list, with tasks ranging from planning new resident arrivals, dealing with maintenance and safety issues, organising onsite events, to performing a variety of administrative tasks, such as handling parcels and managing visitors. All of which contributes to the overall resident experience.
The changing expectations of residents
Although digitalising your resident experience can often be overlooked, it can help increase the value of the development.
90% of millennials would consider paying higher rent for better amenities or better property technology.
81% of residents say that it is either important or very important for them to be able to access their resident portal from a mobile device.
64% of residents signed their current lease online in some way, and given the choice, 58% of residents would rather pay rent using a resident portal mobile app than a property website via laptop/desktop.
As the data shows, residents desire a digital experience which is no surprise given the demographics of occupiers. A recent report released by The British Property Federation, Dataloft, London First and The UK Apartment Association has revealed that the most common age band for residents in both BTR and the PRS is 25 to 34 years old (both making up over 40% of all residents).
Digitalise your tenant onboarding
With 91% of all residents likely to use a mobile device the next time they are looking for somewhere to live according to research by Revel, it’s imperative that property managers ensure prospective residents can easily find and browse their property portfolio online.
By digitalising the applicant journey, prospective residents can view the progression of their tenancy in real-time, communicate with the lettings team, sign contracts, and even make payments, all online. Being able to see where they are in the process can also help to manage expectations of how far along the journey they are.
With every tenant following the same automated onboarding process, end-to-end tenancy management software like Spike Lettings can also provide examples of accepted documentation and a clear indication of which documents still need to be produced by the applicant, saving hundreds of admin hours having to chase for the right documents and speeding up the onboarding process. As well as having the potential to handle all reservations in-house rather than relying on an outsourced lettings agent.
Make reporting issues and booking amenities easy
One of the most time-consuming parts of a property manager’s job is the handling of maintenance issues, with minor issues turning into major ones if they aren’t dealt with quickly and efficiently. Without an easy and simple way for residents to report maintenance issues, they can often go unreported.
Resident Portals like Spike Living speed up the communication in these instances and allow residents to quickly provide your maintenance staff with a clear picture of the task ahead, with residents even able to attach photos of the issue so maintenance staff can diagnose the fault ahead of time, increasing the likelihood of fixing the issue in their first visit.
Similarly, with onsite gyms, games rooms, dinning spaces and a host of other amenities becoming the new norm in residential developments, having an easy way for residents to book and interact with these spaces without requiring staff interaction increases the probability of them being used. Being able to open an app and book a room turns what could be an archaic process into a seamless experience, encouraging residents to spend more time enjoying the spaces, and not having to worry about the stress of gaining access.
How to Get Started on Your Digital Journey?
As the data shows, digitalising the resident journey and experience is no longer a ‘nice to have’ and more of a ‘must have’ for those developments wanting to attract and more importantly retain its residents. In an age where self-service and digital interactions are being the new norm, property managers need to ensure they adapt with the times.
Spike’s tenancy management solution, Spike Lettings and award-winning resident engagement portal, Spike Living, is proven to not only enhance resident experience but also streamline and improve the operational efficiency for property managers.
Creating community is vitally important to developer The Heaton Group, which specialises in repurposing dilapidated buildings to enhance town centres, bring neighbours together and restore local pride. This is why it has chosen to partner with market-leading resident engagement and property management software provider Spike Global, to create a personalised residents’ portal to help foster community spirit in its latest development, Bishopgate Gardens in the centre of Preston, Lancashire.
Spike Global has worked with The Heaton Group to create a white labelled version of its Spike Living portal that is unique to residents of the 130 apartments. The portal, which can be accessed through a smartphone app, is helping tenants connect with their neighbours, make new friends, join clubs, book communal amenities and even receive discounts on local services – as well as taking care of routine practicalities such as reporting faults or keeping track of payments.
John Heaton, Managing Director of The Heaton Group, comments: “From when we were first designing Bishopgate Gardens, it was imperative that we created a community and enhanced what is going on in the local area. Our resident portal is key to us doing this. As well as being functional and allowing residents to communicate with our concierge and maintenance team, it is encouraging residents to meet up and socialise either in the building or at local events. It’s like a modern day message board, but with more functionality.”
Bishopgate Gardens is a development on Ormskirk Road, close to Preston bus station, that has transformed two disused former Department of Work and Pensions office blocks into the town’s first amenity-focused residence, with roof gardens, community lounges and co-working space to encourage a more sociable way of living. Beneath the apartments is a retail space that The Heaton Group has transformed into ready-to-occupy shops for local independent entrepreneurs, including local coffee shop Brew + Bake, deli, hairdresser and barber, to help give the area an instant buzz.
Jeremy Heath-Smith, CEO of Spike Global, comments: “Bishopgate Gardens has been designed to create a sense of community spirit, and our Spike Living portal is an important part of that, offering more ways for residents to meet and get to know each other, as well as giving local businesses the chance to promote what they have to offer. We are delighted to be working with The Heaton Group to put modern technology to work on an age-old problem – how to make friends and feel at home when you move somewhere new.”
Bishopgate Gardens comprises 130, one, two and three-bedroom apartments and duplexes, all featuring high-specification kitchens and bathrooms, in the heart of Preston’s regenerating town centre. Over the past decade the area has received a £434 million investment to expand and improve the infrastructure for transport, create 20,000 new jobs and more than 17,000 new homes. The local economy is expected to grow by over £1 billion in the next 10 years, meaning it is bound to be a popular destination for young people looking for a first home, buy-to-let investors and those looking to move to a thriving area for work.
With that in mind, Bishopgate Gardens, in conjunction with Spike Global, provides the technology to help them rapidly turn a house into a home.
