rentview

June 18, 2013

Tenancy agreement software

One of the most important tasks in renting a property which needs to be completed is the signing of a legally binding contract between the landlord and tenant. This is known as the “tenancy agreement”, “letting agreement” or “lease”. The objective of the contract is to highlight the rights and responsibilities of all parties – landlord, tenant and letting agent.

As a letting agent or property manager, generating a tenancy agreement is normally quite routine, yet time-consuming. The majority of the tenancy agreement remains the same,with the first couple of pages tailored to that of the property and majority of terms or clauses set in stone according to local law.

Tenancy agreement software

Tenancy agreement software created here; at Rentview we have looked at how to save time for you, the letting agent, by streamlining the whole administration process around the letting of a property. Not only will the auto generation of the tenancy agreement save you time, but now all your documents can be stored securely online. Being cloud-based, your data is backed up every hour on multi-site servers, so your data is kept secure and up to date at all times. The tenancy agreement can be shared online with both landlord and tenant.

Through our letting agency software, each process within the cycle is streamlined to save you time when you arrive at your next task along the cycle. Take a look at the overview video on our tenancy agreement software to see exactly how easy Rentview makes this process.

If at this time you prefer not to use the tenancy agreement software and want to continue generating your own tenancy agreements, that is fine. Below we have provided a link to free blank tenancy agreements.

Tenancy agreement UK – AST Blank lease

Tenancy agreement Scotland – AT5 Blank lease

& Tenant information pack Scotland

Tenancy agreement Ireland – Fixed Term blank residential lease

by Rentview

Tenancy agreement software

June 6, 2013

New feature roll outs

As always, the development team are busy at Rentview pushing out new feature roll outs and improvements on our property management software. As always, our users have a big part to play in our feature updates as it is our customers that request them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwgwOb6yT6o?rel=0

Feature Updates

1) Deposit Receipts – are now generated and downloadable from the schedule and they can now also be downloaded when tenants login to access their account.

2) Agency Base Rate – will automatically be used to calculate the management fee when you are adding a new property or starting a new lease. This defaults to a % but can be changed to a figure. Each new property can have a different rate than the base rate.

3) Editing the Rent – if you need to change the rent amount during a lease you can do this now, select ‘Lease’, amend the rent amount, and all future rents will be updated on the remaining unpaid rents.

4) Editing the Management Fee –this change will also apply if you need to change the landlord’s management fee, Select ‘Lease’, amend the rent amount, and all future management fees will be updated on the statement.

5) Tenants’ details – we have also tidied up the tenant’s view page to our new bootstrap style and we will be rolling out a delete option next week here.

6) Total Properties – when checking out your property portfolio we now allow you to see how many properties you have under Management, Let-only or inactive. We also now display how much you charge for your management fee on each property and we will be developing better reports so you can forecast recurring fees.

7) Lease Terms – lastly in this update, when you are starting a lease, the end date will automatically calculate if you select the start date and term.

If there is something you would like to see on the platform, please let us know!

by Rentview

April 15, 2013

Property profile page new design

This weekend saw the new design of the property profile page being released. We have been busy listening to our users who have asked for an even quicker way in reconciling rental payments as received and paid to landlords.

property profile page

Now agents can do all of these tasks on the Property Profile Page. However if a rental payment due needs to be edited or history viewed this can still all be done through the Schedule page.

Managing financials

Once your rental payment is received you can process it from your Rentview account to the landlords here also. It will now show the deductions to be taken and held from the rent. You can also click through to the invoice page to add/edit or delete any payments from this invoice. As with the rental schedule page you can also click through to the Statement page to view history etc.

Property Notes

Lastly you can also now add notes to the property which are date stamped with which ever agent left the notes. These notes are for internal use only.

To find out more about how Rentview’s letting agency software can help your letting agency enquire at info@rentview.com

by Rentview

March 5, 2013

How to collect rent

Collect rent

One of the fundamental tasks a letting agent or property manager will undertake when managing a rental portfolio is to effectively manage the rent collection. There is a whole ecosystem working here and if you have a good Rental Management Software system in place, it saves you a lot of time and effort. It also helps if you have managed to secure good quality referenced tenants for your properties, then you can reduce the possibility of the extra work load.

The reality for some letting agencies is that managing the rental payments from tenants is quite a stressful (Full time) job. If all goes to plan and tenants pay on time via standing order or direct debit then the rent paying eco system flows perfectly. Tenant paying on time means the letting agency receives fees on time and the Landlord / Mortgage is paid on time. Usually what happens here is your landlord has a very good experience dealing with your letting agency and you retain the landlord as a customer.

collect-rent

When managing rental properties it is important letting agents and property manager’s setup efficient ways to collect the monthly or weekly rent. Agents who use Property Management Software can reduce admin time. Below I have listed some of the most popular methods.

How to collect rent

Standing order: The most cost effective way to manage rental payments is by setting up a standing order with your tenants for the rental payments. Make sure if you are managing multiple rental payments you include a reference code to identify the rent payment.

collect-rent-software

Direct debit: This is a great way to collect rent payments and gives letting agencies great control when administrating rental payments. Similar to a standing order but with better controls, please beware of any cost implications for your letting agency if tenants funds bounce. I recently came across a company who facilitate the collection of funds via direct debit called www.gocardless.com who charge up to £2 per transaction.

Collecting cash: The oldest method used to collect rent. When managing rental payments, this is the one method I would not recommend you implement if you are managing a mid-size portfolio. There are too many issues with collecting rent via cash from tenants each month. I hear from too many letting agencies who allow their office to be used as a bank for tenants to lodge cash. It is better to use another method to collect rent. Some of the issues which could arise include:

Losing or misplacing cash in office.
Leaving your office open to robbery.
Fraud issues with staff members administrating cash transactions.
Cost of bank charges for cash lodgements can be expensive.
Administration time managing cash lodgements.

Bank lodgement: Allowing your tenants lodge funds directly to your bank is another method used by some property managers for their rent management. Agents need to be aware of the bank charges levied for allowing tenants to lodge to your bank account when using this method to collect rent. You will also need to be aware of lodged rental payments which are not referenced and from previous experience managing a rental portfolio, I can tell you that this can be an administration nightmare.

Credit card: With increased access to debit and credit cards this could be a way to collect rent in the future but the costs are just too high at the moment and to get a merchant ID from a provider is sometimes difficult. Would you pay 2.9% or (£14.50) to collect rent of £500 from your tenants?

You may also be interested in this infographic on The Costs of taking Monthly Rental Payments .

Let us know what your experiences are in rent management, or if you have any questions, do get in touch!

by Colin Napper

February 27, 2013

Letting agents revenue

I recently got a call from a Rentview subscriber who was hoping to maximize her letting agency revenue opportunities from her current portfolio.

When we got chatting, we went through what percentage of her landlords had taken the letting agencies full property management package against the let-only service The response was standard enough with approx 1 in every 4 landlords choosing the full property management package. So that meant that the remaining 75% were choosing the let only service.

letting agents revenue

Letting agents revenue can be restricted by lack of communication

The problem here is that letting agents will not typically contact a let-only landlord during the lease cycle. The majority of letting agents using letting agency software or an organised filing system will only contact the landlord and tenant in the last month of the lease. The result of this can be rewarding for a letting agency, but what if there was greater communication throughout the lease period? The rewards could be even greater.

In a typical letting and management agent’s portfolio, they have let-only landlords who are midway through a lease period and others that have gone by the initial lease period signed. So for each type of landlord there could be a different approach used.

Methods to increase letting agents revenue

Mid-lease landlord– a landlord who you helped to find tenants but who is not receiving your management services.

One way to deal with this potential repeat customer could be a quick check-up call with the landlord to see how everything is going with the tenancy. Is there anything that you can help the landlord with? Is there any rent outstanding? Is the tenant maintaining the property? Does the landlord need any advice on new regulations?

Being a landlord isn’t easy, and as you are the experienced professional, you can offer your assistance. It is a great reminder of your services and shows the landlord that you are an agency focused on customer service and increasing your letting agency revenue

Expired lease period landlord– a landlord who had been contacted at the end of the lease term and wanted to renew the lease himself or let the lease roll.

Here you could use a similar approach to the above but it can also be used as a direct revenue opportunity for your letting agency. Why not offer something for free to this landlord, like a quick midterm inspection? A midterm inspection is a quick drop into the property to see how everything is going. This typically won’t take more than 5 minutes inside the rental property with the tenants, followed up with a call to the landlord.

Better still why not offer the landlord a detailed midterm inspection report? This typically would involve pictures along with notes on the property condition, items which may need attention and give the landlord a feel for how is property is being maintained.

increase letting agency revenue

What you can charge will depend on how you deliver the inspection. I know that letting agents using the Digital Inventory reports are charging somewhere around £80 for this service. A digital inventory report includes detailed date-stamped and geo-tagged photos, detailed condition reports and is all accessible on the cloud. Check out how to use the Rental Property Inventory App.

Your portfolio and your clients are your letting agency’s assets and if you don’t take good care of them they will depreciate. Letting agencies that want a better way to manage their property management portfolio may be interested in our Letting Agency Software.

Letting agents’ revenue on let-only clients should not be restricted to an annual letting or renewal fee. By offering additional services and communicating with landlords, letting agents can increase revenue!

by Andreas Riha

February 7, 2013

Letting agency website design

In our last blog post on letting industry challenges we looked at how winning new landlords was one of the current biggest challenges for letting agents. Apart from providing an excellent service to your landlords and winning referrals, your website is currently your next best marketing tool. The problem is, as we discussed, that many letting agents neglect their website and their letting agency website design.

How to use your strong letting agency website design to build a portfolio

Image Credit: Jayel Aharem

Letting agency SEO

So let’s start by doing a quick health check on your website to see how people are currently finding you. There are a couple of simple enough ways to get under the hood of your site, I would recommend using Google Analytics (click here for a previous blog on Analytics) or Google webmaster tools. You can access these by simply setting up a free Google account (if you haven’t already got one) and simply searching for them. You will need access to the control panel of your website to install a simple code into your website as a security feature. It’s quite simple but if that is something you are not comfortable doing, just ask who ever looks after your site to install the code.

Analyse your website

If you can’t access either of these a simple way to get some information on your website is to got through Alexa. Here you can get a quick overview of where your website ranks. It also gives you the chance to see keyword queries that bring a high percentage of traffic to a particular URL. So when here, check your own site and then perhaps a competitor who is doing well.

Once you get the site up, you can go through and click onto search analytics to see the top search queries which are driving traffic to your competitor’s website. Compare it with your own. Is your competitor generating more traffic through search terms? Are the search terms they rank highly in ones which you wish to gain traffic through? If so, they are probably working more effectively on SEO than your own site. Most letting agents are looking at finding landlords through their website SEO.

How to use your website as a visitor

Search the term that you think a new landlord would search to find a property manager or letting agent in your area, then see who ranks the highest. Now visit their site on Alexa to find out more about them. Learn from their website and implement changes needed to move your website up the search ranking.

Another interesting statistic to find out is how many back links your competitor has. The more back links a site has, the more attractive the website is for search engines to return that site on the first page of a search result (or SERP). A back link is your website’s URL on another website. Below is how a back link looks:

https://rentview.co/blog/data-backup-for-agencies/ or if hyperlinked in text, the same link might look like this.

If you want to know more about link building strategies this is a great place to start. In order for your website to generate traffic, it is very important to look at your letting agency website design.

by Andreas Riha

January 18, 2013

Letting agency accounts

Letting agency accounts update

We have been busy gathering feedback from our users and implementing changes to improve your experience and needs with your Rentview agency account. So what’s new?

With the development team’s time spent primarily on accounting and preparing the client account for the last quarter of 2012, there was not a huge amount of visual changes to Rentview. Your Rentview account will now track all monies in and out of your client’s account in line with regulation.

Via the Accounts toolbar there are now 5 Tabs

Rents- The “Rents” tab allows you to track what rents are overdue, due today and due within the next seven days. This is shown through a traffic light system. Here, you can reconcile the payments as received and partially paid. As you know, this is can be the busiest part of the maintenance of your letting agency accounts.

Statements- The “Statements” tab monitors what rents have been processed as received; either in your client account or in cash en route to be deposited into your client account.

Deposits- The “Deposits” tab reports on what tenancy deposits you are holding in your client account. This will only report on the deposits that are selected as held in client account when starting a new lease term on a property. Once a tenancy has ended after the lease term or prematurely the deposit can be reconciled out of the client account.

Fees– The “Fees” tab reports on what Agency Fees are currently being held in your client account. An agency fee will appear in your client account after you process payments from a landlord’s statement page as paid. An agency fee needs to be added as such under the landlord’s statement page under each monthly invoice. You can clear your agency fees from your client account into your business or office account as often as you wish.

Tradesman- The “Tradesman” tab allows you to track what deductions are in your client account and due to be taken from rental payments. A tradesman invoice is any deduction to be made from a rental payment which is not an agency fee. Deductions could represent a tradesperson, supplier, petty cash, ad hoc expenses etc. You can select any tradesman account to see what is currently outstanding in payment, what is in your client account and can be paid, and what was paid in the past.

Making your letting agency accounts easier to manage

All of the information here will allow you to reconcile and report on what monies are currently in your client account and who they belong to in line with client account regulation. An accounts summary tab in your agency configuration will report on the accumulated amounts. An accounts feature to be released in early 2013 will be the accounts statement / ledger page. This will show you the history of money in and out of your client account, similar to your bank statement.

That’s it for today folks, if you have any questions, you can get in touch with us on our Facebook!

by Rentview

Articles of interest

How to collect rent

Letting agent revenues

October 26, 2012

Rentview are finalists in the Irish Webawards 2012

The Rentview team are delighted to be a finalist in the Irish Web Awards under category of Best New Web Application. The finals will take place in The Mansion House Dublin on November 1st. Best of luck to all the finalists on the night and we look forward to meeting you all on the night. #webawards12

October 23, 2012

Data Backup for Letting Agencies

backup-data

Data backup. One of the the key phrases that should be coming from every estate agency owner’s mouth on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis. It is a hot topic in the Rentview office at the moment, as we learn that several agencies are not backing up valuable data often enough. Some don’t even think of it to begin with! Obviously, as a property services provider, the day to day running of a lettings or estate agency will involve a lot of data entry and management. This is vital to smooth operation of the business, but the backing up of such data is CRITICAL to the survival of any business.

Say for example, you have the best in-house system an agency could dream of, data entry is done accordingly and managed to perfection. Unfortunately your office is the target of a freak accident next week where a firework sets it on fire. Now this is likely not to happen, but if you did lose your computers during an accident, that’d be the end of your company and its existence. There is no getting it back, unless you have done one of two things. A, Backed it up on external hard drives or B invested in a cloud-based system that provides data backup for you.

data-backup

I cannot stress enough the importance of backing your data up on a regular basis and in a safe, secure way so that if you did burn down tomorrow, you could open the next day somewhere else easily. Most cloud-based software will be automatically backed up onto the main server regularly. I know on the Amazon S3 server we use it’s every hour. With more and more business being done digitally and important documents being sent to one another via e-mail and through software now is the time to develop a data back up strategy.

Property Management Software

Rent Management Software

by Rentview