Itโs no secret that property managers are often used as a battering ram, caught in the middle of the landlordโs wants and the tenantโs needs.
Itโs no simple task managing the competing interests of varying parties, and the complex nature of the job often sees property managers leave the profession soon after entering it.
MEN ON A MISSION
Scott Bateman and Brock Fisher want to change all that.
The two PropTech visionaries are leading the charge in Agentplusโs push to create a new, industry-leading build of its core product.
Agentplus is an Australian property management software business focused on solving challenges for all of the people in property โ the renters, the owners and the property managers.
Scott, as Agentplus Chief Executive Officer, and Brock, as Head of Product, remain coy about the name of the new product, but they promise it will be bigger, better and much more innovative than whatโs currently available in the property management software market.
โWeโre not just doing things five per cent or 10 per cent better,โ Brock says.
โIncremental change is not something we find viable or attractive, so weโre really focusing on turning the customer experience on its head.โ
Scott says the new platform aims to overcome two long-term challenges in the industry, namely software usability and the high rate of property manager burnout.
โOne of the big challenges that the old Agentplus of the past had was because it was such a comprehensive system, it was also incredibly difficult to learn how to use,โ he says.
โOne of the other critical things we are trying to solve with the new product is how transient the property manager workforce is.
โThe rate of attrition is scary and some of the data that weโve seen is that property managers, on average, have a career that lasts less than 12 months.
โThey come into the industry, start with an agency, burnout or become disenfranchised and within a year theyโve left the industry.
โSo weโve started thinking about designing a system that helps them enjoy the work they do and get a greater sense of control over the work they do.
โThe second part is, if we have to accept that there will be some who do only last less than 12 months, how do we help a property manager pick up the application and be proficient in it from day one?โ
A SIMPLE SOLUTION
The goal is to make the platform so simple to use a school student could master it quickly and effectively, almost as soon as logging in.
Scott says the purpose of good technology is to reduce the number of stressors in a personโs life or career, not create more.
โMy benchmark here is internet banking,โ he says.
โNo one needs to teach a 12-year-old how to pick up an iPhone and manage their accounts for internet banking because the technology is so well designed.
โWe know it can be done because we see it in other industries, but for whatever reason property management has been allowed to remain this very complex area.
โThatโs not to say itโs not a complex job, of course it is, but the whole point of good technology is that it takes really difficult things and makes them feel really easy to do.โ
HOW IT BEGAN
Scott and Brock moved across to Agentplus about six months ago from Little Real Estate, where they had been executive general managers.
Little Real Estate looks after the largest rent roll in the country, with 22,000 properties under management.
Brock has 22 yearsโ experience in property management, including as a property manager, business development manager and in executive roles.
Scott has extensive experience in the financial services industry before moving into real estate and PropTech to innovate in the customer experience field.
The pair is at the helm of a team that incorporates some of the best minds in the business, including a senior leadership team and advisory board that lead the build, growth and eventual sale of PEXA.
The development team currently comprises 35 experts and up to a further 45 will be recruited over the next nine months.
โWeโve taken everything weโve learned over the past 15 years about delivering an industryleading property management platform and combined this with extensive research of customer pain points, expectations, technology trends and alternative revenue models, which weโve examined through a multi-year, multi-industry global review,โ Brock says.
INTUITIVE SERVICES
The new software will extend on its current capabilities to deliver intuitive contextual services for landlords and tenants, work across web browsers and apps for mobile devices and integrate better with other platforms to reduce the amount of technology required.
Scott says the market is saturated with software thatโs good at administrative task completion but that the new Agentplus will focus on thinking through what the customer experience should look like.
It will make a property managerโs day far more manageable through automation, but it will also preempt services landlords and tenants may require.
In the case of routine inspections, the software will feature extra services, such as cleaning, the tenant may want to engage before the visit.
โThe software is thinking about what that person might want or need and offering it to them at the right moment in time,โ Scott says.
โIf you take the recent hail storms in Melbourne, I want the software to be looking at the weather and contacting me to say โthereโs a storm coming, you might want to bring some things insideโ or โit looks like you may have been affected, so if you need to organise a maintenance request click hereโ,โ he says.
โSo itโs making you feel like the platform cares about you and the experience you have.โ
Brock says the software will also reduce the number of points of friction between property managers, landlords and tenants through offering greater transparency.
He says the platform wonโt just deliver static information, and it will keep processes moving.
It could be that a hot water system has broken and the tenant can login and check if a repairman has been booked or the system might prompt a landlord to make a decision on which quote to select if the issue hasnโt been attended to promptly.
โIt means that the property manager isnโt the one who has to jump on the phone to say โIโve got a tenant screaming at me for this, why donโt we have an answerโ?โ Brock says.
โThe app is doing the heavy lifting for them.โ
FULLY MOBILE
Brock says while many products on the market are web browser-based, the new platform would be built on an app first, with property manager, tenant and landlord specific versions.
It means everyone can login whenever and wherever they are, including busy property managers who can work on the move.
Brock says not to panic; there will be a browser version too.
โThe role of a property manager is a portable role so it makes sense that if they are at a property then they can complete a piece of work while theyโre there without having to use a separate add-on system or go back to the office,โ he says.
โWe want this to have start-to-finish functionality so property managers can make use of their time if theyโre early to an appointment, sitting on the bus or working at home while sneakily watching Netflix.โ
TIMEFRAME FOR DELIVERY
Scott and Brock expect existing Agentplus customers will begin to migrate across to the new platform around the middle of this year, while customers on their wait list will start coming onto the platform from October.
Scott says in its day Agentplus was a market leader with its comprehensive and feature-rich offering and he looks forward to it taking that top spot again.
โIt did things that the others, at the time, just didnโt do,โ he says.
โSadly, it didnโt move with the times and didnโt get the love that it needed as everyone else went to the cloud and did what they did.
โBut itโs turned out to be a real blessing because itโs meant that we havenโt just gone and built the same thing as everyone else and itโs given us a chance to step back, go off overseas and look at where things are headed and start to make some different decisions in terms of the role we think we can play.โ