Leveraging PropTech for Data-Driven Success in the UK’s Build-to-Rent Sector

REdirect's Client Success Director, Callum Board, was proud to participate as a panellist in a recent webinar titled Leveraging PropTech for Data-Driven Success in the Property Industry, which focused on the UK’s build-to-rent (BTR) sector. The event, organized by REdirect in collaboration with SAY Property Consulting and UKPA, brought together professionals from across the industry to discuss key trends and insights.

The session was hosted by Sammy Pahal, the Managing Director of the UK PropTech Association (UKPA) and the Director of the British Property Federation (BPF). The other panellists were Debra Yudolph of SAY Property Consulting, Danielle Bayless of Quintain, Andrew Mason of Grainger, and Georgie Drewery of Yardi. The webinar attracted an excellent turnout, and the panel engaged in a far-reaching discussion on various aspects of utilizing PropTech for the BTR space in the UK.

This post shares some of the key learnings and takeaways from the webinar.

The Findings of Our Tech & Innovation Survey 

Earlier this year we published the findings of a tech and innovation survey in partnership with UKPA and BPF. We surveyed various property and proptech respondents across the industry, asking them about their challenges and interests around data and technology.

The insights gleaned from the survey helped to paint a picture of both the opportunities and the hurdles facing the property sector as it embraces digital transformation. It also highlighted several key trends, including:

• The growing importance of data and analytics, with over 80% of property businesses stating that digital and technological innovation will lead to better decision-making and enhanced performance.
• An ongoing struggle with fragmented data systems and the need for consistency, particularly in financial and operational reporting.
• Challenges in data management, with a strong consensus emerging around the difficulties in integrating different data systems and tools, with almost half of respondents citing a lack of integration across platforms as a key barrier.
• Both excitement and anxieties around the strategic role that AI and big data will play, with 60% of respondents predicting significant changes in the next three to five years as these tools reshape how resident engagement and operational efficiency are managed.

These themes underlined the importance of scalable, flexible proptech solutions that can aggregate data effectively and provide real-time insights, particularly in the area of investor KPIs.

BTR Data, Metrics, and KPIs 

Achieving consistent and reliable metrics is a common challenge for firms across the property industry, particularly for those managing a diverse portfolio of properties. New technologies can be both an asset and an obstacle, presenting a steep learning curve but ultimately allowing for far more efficient and accessible data management.

Since BTR is still an emerging sector, firms often feel “left on their own” to determine how to choose and leverage technological solutions effectively. This can be costly in terms of time, resources, and financial investment.

One tool was described as a 'game changer,' offering easy access to data and robust analytics. Another platform was highlighted for its ability to collate data from various operational systems, enabling teams to become more proactive rather than reactive as they digitize processes. However, defining relevant metrics—such as occupancy and void units—was identified as a key challenge.

Georgie mentioned the differences between investor KPIs, which are likely to center around revenue and net operating income (NOI), and operator KPIs, which are more likely to relate to resident issues such as maintenance requests. Similarly, Debra identified the challenges around assessing performance and benchmarking against similar assets in an industry where, even within one company’s portfolio, there can be such a variety of approaches.

The takeaway from this was that the industry urgently needs greater continuity, not just in terminology but also in indexing, benchmarking standards, common KPIs, and the accessibility of data for various stakeholders, including investors. Later in the webinar, an attendee asked more about this subject and the responsibility organizations have for creating and defining these standards. It is likely to fall to industry bodies such as the UKPA and BPF to bring industry professionals together to understand these challenges and work collaboratively to solve them.

Defining Success 

In this varied and dynamic industry, even understanding what success looks like can be a challenge for property businesses. Firms may need to consider a wide array of different metrics including occupancy, efficiency, time taken to turn a unit, and more. 

Defining the most important metrics for your company is a vital component of choosing, implementing, and effectively leveraging proptech for your success. 

The Role of PropTech Providers 

The discussion then moved on to the role that technology providers can play in the property industry, particularly within the BTR sector.

Users need to be equipped with the knowledge to properly utilise the technologies, from knowing how to create reports to understanding what to do with all the data they are pulling from their system. One interconnected ERP property management solution can provide consistency, accuracy, and a streamlined approach, where all the relevant data is in one easily accessible place. Some companies have approached this challenge by creating their own solutions, which comes with both benefits and drawbacks.

Scalability is a challenge for property businesses with large portfolios or those looking to expand. Utilising different systems together becomes more difficult as more units are added. Additionally, certain types of assets—such as stabilised assets—have entirely different tracking and reporting requirements than others. This means that flexibility in data collection, data analysis, and reporting is essential.

PropTech providers have a role to play in not only offering fully comprehensive, flexible, and scalable solutions, but also in providing support and training to enable clients to maximise their potential.

Beyond Organisational Data 

One common challenge that emerged from the survey results was that property businesses are not always entirely confident in the quality and accuracy of their data and may not be collecting and utilising all the forms of data available to them.

Historically, asset data and resident behavioural data have been particularly poor in the BTR sector, and these important elements are often overlooked in favour of operational data. Property management businesses need to build a greater understanding of their units and the things their residents want and need.

The right technological solutions can assist in gathering, understanding, and increasing confidence in the quality and robustness of this data, as well as ultimately putting it into practice to meet resident expectations and provide a great customer experience. Even small details, such as cleaning a common space at the time when it is least in use, can make a big difference to the resident experience.

With advances in AI and automation solutions, data gathering and analysis tasks that once took weeks can now be performed in hours. With the right kinds of data, strategy, data infrastructure, and proptech infrastructure, property businesses can begin to pull numerous data points together to deepen their understanding of how their customers are interacting with their building and how best to serve those customers.

The Challenge of Data Management 

With vast amounts of data now being collected by BTR property management organisations, managing that data becomes a significant challenge. Effective data management and infrastructure begins with getting the basics right. This means looking at data from a holistic perspective and centralising it to benefit the entire organisation. Only by understanding the overall data architecture can a company begin to enjoy the greatest return on its investment or learn how to truly harness the power of the data that's being produced.

Clients are advised to identify which data points and metrics matter the most to them, start small, and scale from there rather than attempting to measure everything immediately. The focus should be on what is imperative to the business and what will set the organisation up for the greatest future success. Attempting to measure too many things too quickly can easily lead to being overwhelmed. It is always better to do a small number of things well than to do a lot of things poorly.

Collating Disparate Data Sources in a Scalable Manner 

Linking disparate sources of information and data is one of the biggest areas of focus for REdirect and is almost inevitably the biggest challenge that clients face. Many clients attempt to manage data by doing a “data dump” into an Excel spreadsheet, which quickly becomes redundant because the data is no longer current. A lot of manual intervention is also required to transform this data into a logical format with a narrative behind it that can be used to inform decision-making across the business. This labour-intensive process also means that clients are not able to act on that data as quickly as they would like, and it is fraught with the potential for human error.

Power BI is a powerful tool that centralises critical business data, empowering teams to make informed decisions quickly and effectively. With seamless integration into Microsoft tools like Teams, 365, and Dynamics 365, it enables real-time insights and enhanced collaboration. Explore how Power BI can transform data management on our Power BI solutions page.

As property businesses scale, add units to their portfolios, and collect more data, the need for scalable data management grows. This scalability becomes far more difficult when multiple disparate systems are in use. Management companies need to be able to add new units to their system quickly and seamlessly, update them as required, and pull reports as required without needing to manually transfer data between different tools or platforms.

When REdirect works with clients looking to scale, there are inevitably some inefficiencies within their processes. As proptech providers, consultants, and support providers, it is REdirect's job to create efficiencies around some of these big challenges and pain points. One of the most common inefficiencies seen is around utilising disparate systems in place of a single, comprehensive solution. REdirect has also developed robotic process automation (RPA) tools to handle many of their clients’ most common repetitive manual tasks.

REdirect most often begins a client relationship with a business process review. This relatively low-investment offering allows clients to understand what their processes are, how technology is solving their problems (or isn’t), and where they ultimately want to go. Starting here can save a significant amount of time and money down the road.

AI for the BTR Sector 

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is growing rapidly and presents a number of exciting opportunities within the property space. For example, chatbots are now common across business sectors from banking to retail and many more. For the BTR sector, there is great potential to utilise chatbots to, for example, answer common questions and walk new customers through the leasing journey. This can dramatically improve the customer journey and overall customer service.

Some organisations are even taking this a step further and considering creating AI versions of their leasing agents to create immersive, customised AI video tour experiences.

Generative AI can also be used by property firms to speed up invoicing, pull reports, ask the right questions to generate the most useful data, and more. AI tools can perform tasks such as bank to book, bank reconciliation, reporting, distribution, data scraping, and data entry.

Other exciting potential uses for AI for the BTR sector in the future include predictive pricing models, tailored marketing, utilising the internet of things more effectively, and maintaining the all-important balance between the efficiency of technology and the warmth of the human touch.

Ultimately, REdirect believes that using AI will allow property firms to be more strategic, speed up their processes, and enhance convenience without taking away human interaction. At its best, AI frees up employees to do value-adding tasks that machines cannot replicate. Again, REdirect advises companies to start small, consider their greatest pain points or inefficiencies, and scale their use of AI slowly.

Watch the Webinar and Learn More 

You can watch the webinar in full on Youtube. 

If there are any questions about the topics discussed, or if you would like to learn more about REdirect’s services for the UK BTR sector, please contact Callum, and he or a member of the team will be pleased to assist you