THE private residential property market is heated nationally by changing regulations, Rental Pressure Zones, falling accommodation levels, rising rents and a mobile working population that follows the jobs trajectory. The country also welcomes a large returning population who had moved overseas for work, drawn here now by economic recovery.
Take it from the landlords’ advocacy group, the Irish Property Owners Association, how scarce accommodation is and why. They issued this flat statement on July 25 in dispute with Government’s perceived policies of punitive taxation and regulation:
“212,000 landlords were providing accommodation in 2012 and now there are 174,000,” the IPOA’s chairman Stephen Faughnan had stated. ”If the State had the foresight to treat property owners fairly, it is highly likely that there would be homes for people who need them.”
‘Moving’ on PropertyButton.io takes away the hassle to do with paperwork and compliance with GDPR, BER and Safety Certificates, Energy regulations and Data Protection Commissioner Audits, shifting the burden for the data management to Property Button. All such data is stored securely in the Cloud.
Looking at Rental Tenancy Board figures, there were 7,000 tenancies less between 2016 and 2017, the last full year for which figures are available. And with our population increasing rapidly with returned emigrants, what tenants and letting agents and local authorities and private landlords want is the best match between the rental candidate and available property.
Meet Property Button and its new ‘Moving’ service at propertybutton.io. Its growth is phenomenal at 28 per cent week on week since the May 2018 launch. More than 5000 tenants, many of them from Limerick, have signed up to this new property management service, creating profiles to engage with estate agents accessed by way of Daft.ie’s rental pages. From the utility-switching firm Property Button, this new service facilitates the moving process in a positive and speedy interactive way, for tenants and estate agents negotiating for landlords.
Better still, the service is free to the tenant looking to create an attractive and credible identity, submitting documentation to a secure central location.
“Moving @PropertyButton is the Tinder of the property market, allowing tenants to show they would be an excellent match in the scramble to find a suitable property,” says PRO for the company in Munster, Anthony Garvey. “Potential tenants can find out how quickly they will get a viewing, so there’s no queuing to view properties in the street and they can also improve their ranking, by adding validated previous landlord or work references to their profile.”
Curious? We were. Limerick Post Property page undertook a demonstration of this digital pairing plan, led by the service provider’s sales manager Olga Morris in a live trawl through the platforms informed by and visible to letting agents and prospective tenants.
Note that Property Button disallows direct service between tenants and landlords.
Using ‘Moving’ will also ensure all their utilities, including energy, waste and media services, are set up in their new property on moving day.
Property Button has partnered with daft.ie in this, as Olga says that “99 per cent of letting agents use it. MovingHome.ie has more to do with the purchase market.”
So the enquiring tenant spots a likely future home on daft.ie and sends off an enquiry to the letting agent online. ‘Moving’ also takes in manually loaded data from agents to accommodate walk-ins and telephone enquiries for their services.
Olga Morris scrolled Limerick Post through the various screens intelligent to the tenant’s perspective. You load up as much relevant, accurate content to your profile to make you attractive to your future home/ landlord and his/ her letting agent.
This content is controlled by you the tenant, whatever documentation you chose to share – a selfie; a shot of recent utility bills to verify identity and address; references from work; from your present and past landlords or letting agencies used.
From the estate agent’s perspective, he or she collects the incoming enquiries and profiles from candidates. Sifting through the information offered, the property professional parks members of the tenant pool variously in a green folder (good candidate for a viewing); or in amber (on the long list); or red (no go).
Once the agent has selected ideal occupants according to their budget, accountability, timeframe, smoker/ non smoker, with pet, children etc, those who make the shortlist are sent an invitation to a viewing by SMS text. A reminder is sent 90minutes before the viewing.
the property professional has sight of photographs, references, past utility bills etc uploaded electively by the prospective tenant.
“Once the tenant and letting agent have signed contract, ‘Moving’ provides for an online utility switching service that is unique in offering a choice of companies that actually service that address. There’s no point in us offering fibre Broadband if it is not available.
“And because not everyone operates a smartphone or the tenant might have been a walk-in to the letting agent’s office and not sourced online, if the tenant consents, we at Property Button have a four-person moving advisory team.
“We can ring them to ‘handhold’ them through the signing up process for electricity, bins etc and will have the useful data on GPRN for gas, meter readings and so on.”
Everything to love? Get ‘Moving’ on daft.ie now and may the force be with you.
