Reinventing Renting – The tenant fee ban and innovation

March 13, 2018

A lot of agent marketing drives leads that can at best be described as “unqualified” – and at worst as “time-wasters”. Particularly in the lettings’ sphere, it’s often therefore tempting for agents to view tenant leads as pretty much interchangeable – with the amount of hassle involved in qualifying them, listening to their requirements, taking them on viewings and administering the tenancy as equivalently awful, regardless of individual.

Homie, a PropTech startup that has just raised £3m, is determined to prove that a great tenant is different. Their model is to qualify the tenant and reject those that are going to be a pain.

Disclosure: I’m working with Homie because I think that this area of the property market has taken too long to change. Its crazy inefficiency has been subsidised by tenant fees, meaning that pointless work in discussing requirements with unsuitable tenants, or taking them on viewings only to find they don’t pass referencing, is commonplace. That can’t be good for anyone.

With the tenant fee ban coming in next year, the amount of administration agents will have to do for each tenancy is going to be critically important to profitability. Knowing that there is a source of highly-qualified, move-ready tenants on tap is a much stronger proposition than the hit-and-miss process that is currently enabled because each tenant brings with them a fee. Once that fee disappears, it’s going to be even more important to know which tenants are progressible and which are going to suck time and effort from your team for no reward.

There will be others that seek to fix these inefficiencies in due course, so agents should see what solutions there are out there locally to maximise their marketing budget’s return and minimise costs. Discover those, like Homie, who are taking the fee ban seriously and looking to provide what every letting agent is going to need – a fast, reliable and efficient way to find the perfect tenant without the time-waters.

That’s marketing innovation which works.

Written by Mal McCallion – mal@growtion.co

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