Justine: Hi, my name’s Justine Valender from Investors Edge Real Estate. I’m here at the LPMA Conference with Andrew Reece. Hi, Andrew. He is one of the co-owners of Inspect Real Estate, with some really new exciting software.
Andrew, for the landlords at home, can you just tell them a little bit about Inspect Real Estate?
Andrew: Okay. I’m a property manager. It’s what I used to do. I started a real estate agency for 13 years and we experienced a lot of inquiries that can come through about a property. What we’re able to do with Inspect Real Estate is to respond to those inquiries and give the tenant what they want to know–and that is, “How can they see and inspect the property?”
It’s a 24/7 system. It’s great for landlords and owners, knowing that your tenant can book an inspection 24/7. About a third of all of our bookings occur after hours, so it’s like the agency will be open all the time to be able to book and check. It’s becoming commonplace now. You can book an airline ticket, you can book a rental car online, but now you can also book an inspection.
Justine: That’s great! Fantastic! Why is it important for the landlords at home to choose an agent that’s using this software?
Andrew: Okay, one of the things, as the inquiries comes through to the agents, there’s a dashboard here that indicates how many inquiries have occurred that are still waiting for times. As you can see here, there is zero people waiting for inspection time; so this agency is notified and all the clients, that their times are available. Then you can see how many people have actually made inquiries but haven’t yet booked. They become a follow-up. It’s a nice streamline system for them to be able to do it and also very important for an owner. If someone goes and makes an inspection and indicates they’re going to apply, have they applied for the property, and you’ve got to keep your eye on a follow-up to see how many applications you need to follow up.
From the landlord perspective, it’s all about ensuring that your agent is coming back to your tenants very fast, keeping the tenant well informed in the process because often, they’ve got lots of choices who to see, what to look at; but they like to deal with an agent that has an instant response to them, can enable them to book after hours and also let them know if the property is leased in advance.
All the data that also starts happening is very real for now. For example, the report that can be sent instantly out to an owner after the inspection to let them know what happened, as well as a weekly report of the summary which you compare how your property has gone with the agencies of all the inquiries.
What you’re able to do is, if you’ve got a property that may be vacant, you’re losing money. The best way to deal with that is to have a look at the real data behind it, talk to your agent and see which way you may be able to get that property rented faster.
Justine: That’s fantastic! I know a lot of inquiries and landlords, they’re always wanting to know, being kept up-to-date with information. The whole process of leasing, it’s a matter of, yup, a couple of tenants went through and they select one and that’s the whole process over. It sounds like what this gives me, it allows the landlords just to keep that up to date with how the process is going with their property.
Andrew: That’s correct. Part of agents, I suppose, just select an open time instead of they may display the property. What that means is they choose a time that is convenient to the agent.
Under Inspect Real Estate, the agent puts a range of times of their availability on the Net, and the tenant then chooses a time that suits them. There’s much more chances of being able to show the property because there’s all the available times that the tenant then can select in their range of when they want to see. The agents are notified of the inspection, they’re able to turn up.
The best thing of that is in the old days, when you would do an open home, you’re sort of praying that a tenant may turn up. You would then ring the owner on a Monday or Tuesday after the inspection and let them know the results. If you can see the forward bookings, you’re able to realise that no one wants to see this property for the next seven days, so rather than losing another week’s rent you can have a chat to your agent, who will then be able to advise you of all the live data, to then get the property priced accordingly, to find a tenant really fast.
Justine: That sounds fantastic! Last question. How does it work if you’ve got a booking time, you’ve got maybe 15, 20 people booked in, and then there’s a cancellation? Is there a quick way of letting the tenants know when…?
Andrew: Yes, that’s correct. As the property is notified to be leased, the agent then selects that it has been rented, the tenant is instantly advised of the fact that the inspection is cancelled. That’s why a tenant books or registers en masse is because they want to know, too, that if you’re flying with Qantas, the reason why you book a ticket is that if Qantas is changing the time, they’re going to let you know. Same with this, the agent instantly can notify the tenant if the property is leased, and therefore, they can continue their search and hopefully rent another property off that agency.
Justine: Fantastic! Look, Andrew Reece, that sounds absolutely fantastic. Thank you at home for watching, and we’ll catch you next time.
Read an article on: “How Investors Edge Rent Your Property Faster Using the Latest Leasing Technology“
