NOW that the Government’s official “stay at home” advice has been lifted, many office workers are flooding back into city centres, alongside students who are returning to physical classroom learning across Britain.
As a result, demand for rental homes in key city locations is rising by as much as 70% compared to this time last year – when working from home and online lectures were the new norm.
New research from Rightmove* has identified that Edinburgh is in the UK’s top 5 rental property hotspots along with Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, closely followed by York, Nottingham, Merseyside and Weston-Super-Mare.
Rajiv Singh, Founder of the new property rental management application, RentOnCloud, explains: “In key locations across the country, demand for rental properties is booming. However, it is a challenging time for both renters and landlords alike – there is a shortage in the number of rental properties available, and increase in reporting, administration and costs being imposed on landlords.
Rajiv continues: “Everyone is looking at ways to save time and reduce costs. Renters are struggling to find homes they can afford, whilst landlords are looking for ways to reduce their overheads and find more efficient ways to manage their rental property portfolio.”
The majority of UK rental properties are currently marketed and managed, and tenants sourced, via commercial lettings agents, due to a lack of confidence in the commercial viability of non-fee paying websites. Many potential tenants are reluctant to deal with private landlords direct, as the majority of ‘free to use’ public websites do not allow the vetting of landlords, which can result in rental fraud and rogue landlords.
However, using a lettings agent can be costly both from a tenant and landlord perspective, incurring fees for tenant sourcing/references/inventory check-in/out, plus ongoing costs for maintenance services provided by agency sourced tradespeople. Landlords are then liable for additional costs such as accounting and tax reporting.
Rajiv continues: “We’ve created a new app that will help address a shortfall in the market. There are lots of different software packages currently available for managing property, tasks and accounting, but not one single application that integrates productivity tools across the board.
“We’ve therefore created a cost effective, secure, unified service that will meet the needs of everyone – landlords, tenants and maintenance service providers.
“RentOnCloud is the UK’s first, secure, digital platform to connect landlords, renters and tradespeople via a centralised service. We believe RentOnCloud is set to disrupt the Property Rental and Management market by fully enabling the digital transformation of activities.”
RentOnCloud offers a comprehensive, fully flexible range of services for each audience:
Landlords – end-to-end property management includes property listings; a dedicated marketing webpage; ability to source and reference tenants; direct messaging to manage viewings & reminders; tailored property maintenance requests via an open marketplace; rent collection direct via a payment gateway; inventory reporting; document management and accounting.
Renters – search/apply for homes to rent; landlord screening; payment of rent; deposit management; report maintenance tasks for landlord approval.
Trade service providers –showcase services portfolio; receive/bid for tasks directly either from landlords or renters; receive payment via a secure platform.
Key unique services include:
- Integrated Expense and Income accounting functionality to enable automated tax reporting (MTD)
- Tenant and Landlord referencing
- Open marketplace for Landlords and maintenance service providers to enable freedom of choice
- Dedicated service for private owners, households and tradesmen
To fulfil compliance, RentOnCloud is registered as an online agent with The PRS (Ombudsman scheme), ICO (National Data Protection Authority), MyDeposit and partnered with various service organizations, credit bureau agencies, HM offices, Accountants and Tax agent.
Pricing strategy
RentOnCloud services are free to all tenants and single property landlords. Landlords only incur limited costs for some services that require third party agency involvement such as tenant referencing, properties can be listed for free. Tradesmen can list their services free of charge on the open marketplace/bid for work/provides quotes and only pay a service charge for any transactions completed via the digital platform.
For more information please visit: www.rentoncloud.com
