Legislative changes may still be up in the air, but trends are already beginning to emerge which are likely to impact the type of 2022 letting agents will experience.
Huge demand
With the UK returning to some sort of normality following the lifting of most of the pandemic lockdown regulations, we’re seeing a spike in the number of prospective renters – in particular in urban areas where the reversal of the ‘work at home’ advice has seen people looking to rent a property closer to their workplace. There’s also been a 10% increase in house prices over the last year, meaning despite a reported two-fifths of renters wanting to buy out their landlord – the reality means people are staying in the rental market for much longer before being able to afford to buy.
Rent increases Rents are currently increasing at the highest rate in 13 years. Naturally, an agent’s obligations are to the interests of their landlords; but this does represent an opportunity to support them with communicating to their renters why their payments are going up, and ensuring they’re receiving great service with timely repairs, well-maintained properties and speedy responses to their queries.
After all, happy renters make for happy landlords – and happy landlords are great for your business.
Outsourcing
A proportion of the tasks your team undertakes during the day will really add value to your agency – helping you bring in revenue and supporting your future growth. But answering routine phones, while essential, isn’t one of those tasks.
Staff can be tied up for large portions of their day booking in inspections and sorting maintenance queries – with only a small percentage of these calls really needing their expertise in the letting sector.
That’s why we’re starting to see agents embracing the use of Virtual Assistants (VAs) to undertake call answering, appointment booking, and other routine tasks which might need doing dozens or even hundreds of times a day. VAs can work from anywhere in the world, and the costs of hiring them are often much lower than taking on additional staff to deal with all of these calls – in fact, some sources believe you can save 78% on operating costs by making use of VAs.
That’s why I predict we’ll see far more virtual assistants taken on within the lettings industry to deal with standard calls and tasks, escalating complex queries to in-house staff.
Data Capture
Having a database full of prospective landlords and a business development manager working their way through this database – that’s an ideal situation to be in. But how do you establish or grow this database to your target number?
Two words: data capture.
The most successful agencies are already capturing the details of every single prospect, and it’s easy to see why – traditional methods such as adverts and mailers put the onus on the landlord to contact you, but if you have their details then you can actively reach out to them.
I expect we’ll see a rise in the number of agents capturing data in multiple ways, like running webinars for landlords to book on to, and sharing expert guides on their website which require the reader to submit their name and email address in order to access.
Factors such as housing prices and pandemic restrictions may be out of an agent’s control, but there are certainly plenty of opportunities to grow your business in 2022 – by thinking outside the box, forming a stronger team, and working smarter not harder.
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