The demand for rental properties is increasing year on year, with no signs of slowing down. Since 2019, demand for rental properties has increased by 27%, with 47% of agents reporting that the amount of landlords they have worked with in the last year has increased. So, how can you ensure that your agency's lettings portfolio is the one growing?

Streamlining your processes and automating tasks is a certain way to ensure that your agency is in a position to capitalise on the ever-growing rental market. 

Data from We are Unchained’s Voice of the Agent report shows that tasks such as viewings and tenancy progression are some of the most time consuming tasks, taking up 9.2 hours and 10.1 hours of an agent's week, respectively. 

At Street.co.uk, we’re dedicated to making an agent's life simpler, and smoother, helping them to reclaim more of their week. Gaining back time through automating manual tasks allows letting agents to focus on what really matters - growing their lettings portfolio's and keeping landlords happy.

1. Save agents, landlords and tenants time with an online booking system

With lettings agents spending an average of 9.2 hours per week arranging and conducting viewings, it’s easy to see that it’s a huge time sink. 

Using emails and phone calls to manually arrange a date and time is a practice that's stuck in the past, especially when it comes to lettings viewings. Finding a date when the in situ tenant, agent and prospective tenant are all free can be a logistical nightmare.

Implementing an online booking system into your website is a great way to improve client satisfaction and make agents’ lives easier. Agents are able to set up booking systems for each property based on both the agents' viewing availability and pre-arranged times when the property is free. This allows for instant booking of slots and auto-confirmation, removing hours of phone calls and emails from your daily to-do list.

Street.co.uk comes with its very own online booking functionality, which is easy to set up and allows you to do just that. Not only does this make arranging viewings a dream, but it saves you hours of emails too!

2. Never lose track of compliance again 

No matter the size of your lettings agency, keeping track of all the different landlords and properties is a huge task in itself - never mind when compliance checks are thrown in the mix too. But with the ever-tightening regulations, it’s more important than ever to make sure all the paperwork is correct and up to date.

Using an online system to keep everything organised and in the same place is the perfect solution. It allows agents to easily upload certificates to their respective properties and share them with both landlord and tenant.

Street.co.uk takes the stress off your shoulders with its innovative compliance solutions. The CRM uses date reminders to keep on top of expiry dates, as well as checklists to ensure each property has everything it needs to stay compliant. With certificates being saved to their respective properties, agents are able to easily access them whenever they need to, whilst landlords are able to view them through their dedicated Landlord App.

3. Use AI to automate compliance processes and save you hours

Going through certificates and invoices to ensure they’re in-date can be extremely time consuming - especially if your agency has a large lettings portfolio. Spending time going through each document, checking and pulling all the relevant information can take up hours of time and also makes mistakes more likely (we’re only human, after all!).

Consolidating all this information into one place and picking out important information such as validity dates, certificate type, payment due dates etc automatically can save hours of time, making both agents' and landlords' lives easier. 

A tool like Street.co.uk’s brand new AI document reader can help agents get through these tasks quickly, efficiently and without worry. Street AI automatically scans any documents uploaded, pulling relevant information and populating them in dedicated fields. Street.co.uk then automatically sets reminders for when certificates are due to expire, payment is due etc meaning agents are easily able to keep track of certificate expiry and payment dates.

4. Reduce your inbound maintenance requests by 20%

The back and forth between tenant, landlord and agent means that letting agents spend over 9 hours per week dealing with maintenance requests alone, and it can take up to 20 touch points to get one issue resolved.

Using generative AI to help filter and resolve maintenance issues is a great way to keep tenants and landlords happy, as well as reclaiming back hours of time. Agents who use AI to help with maintenance issues have reported that their inbounded maintenance requests have reduced by 20%!

Street.co.uk’s AI powered maintenance tool goes the extra mile by not only using AI to help filter tenant requests, but it also helps simplify the entire process too. Tenants use their dedicated Tenant App to log any issues, with AI jumping in to identify whether the tenant can solve the issue on their own (with tips and tricks to help) or whether the issue needs to be logged with an agent. 

The app then allows them to add images, write a description of the problem with the best time, phone number and email to contact them on for that specific issue. This is all received within the Street.co.uk CRM, allowing the agent to action the issue and resolve it as quickly as possible.

With the average agent competing with 11.7 competitors within their geographical patch, and a rental sector that keeps on growing, it’s more important than ever that processes are put in place to keep your agency ahead of the game and ensure success. 

By focusing on automating processes, your agents can free up hours of time per week to spend working with their clients and growing their lettings portfolio rather than being bogged down by manual tasks.

Utilising tools like the Street.co.uk Tenant App, Landlord App, certificate management and Street AI will not only enhance the service you provide but also build trust and satisfaction between client and agent, which pave the way for long-lasting relationships.

Want to see how Street.co.uk can help you streamline your processes and save you hours of time per week? Book a demo with our sales team to level up your estate agency.