Central Coast start-up offering world first technology for renters
A Central Coast start-up is promising to make the chore of renting a little bit easier with the launch of a global first initiative for tenants — think Siri for property management.
Tenants will attest that renting a property can be one of the most stressful parts of life, whether it be the headache of a new application, bond refunds, maintenance delays or overdue rent payments.
But a Central Coast start-up is now offering a service that could make the headache a little bit easier.
Launching a new artificial intelligence customer service initiative, local agent’s Raine & Horne Terrigal and Erina-based developer Realm Property are offering a world first real estate trust accounting software called Concierge that is set to revolutionise the property management sector in Australia.
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Concierge combines artificial intelligence (AI) with voice recognition and uses Google platforms such as Google Home, and smart phones to provide tenants with full access to their ledger held on their property manager’s trust account.
A partnership with Google assistant on phone, Google mini or SMS will allow renters to simply ask their device, “hey google can I talk to Property Realm?” and a whole range of information can be provided about topics such as tenancy, rent, maintenance requests, rights, to their property manager, along with a wide variety of policies and information about their property manager.
“Having happy renters is our goal and by providing them with all the information they need in a straightforward way 24 hours a day, we believe this will have a big impact,” Brett Hunter, Managing Director of Raine & Horne Terrigal, and President-Elect of the Real Estate Institute of NSW said.
Patrick Hill, CEO of Realm Property said that problems will be solved for both property managers and tenants.
“Property managers are generally swamped, with hundreds of emails to answer. They can now come into work and find that the problem has already been solved because the tenant had a conversation with the AI at 10pm at night. This reduces stress and problems for them, so they’re getting a lot of value out of it,” he said.
“The tenant is also getting value because we are offering a higher service level for them — they can ask for something when and how they want.
“One of the other cool things is that AI can talk across any medium — in the next five years there’s going to be five generations in tenancies, from Boomers to Z’s — they want to talk in very different ways. One will want to come and talk in person, one wants to pick up the phone, another SMS, some will want to use Facebook messenger — our AI is built to talk to all of those. In a couple of months we’ll have Facebook messenger and email added to the service.”
Renters can ask questions like when is my rent due or can I have a pet.
“The tenant can even pay their rent — the system will link them to Google pay and their credit card and even notifies the agent when it’s been paid,” Mr Hunter said.
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“It also targets the data under your account, so for some people who want a puppy, the answer might be no for others yes.”
Mr Hill said that because the technology works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there are lots of things that it can do that an ordinary agency could not.
“Just like a property manager that you hire off the street, it’s learning new skills along the way. So it’s learning at a rate of about four new skills every couple of weeks. Continually getting smarter off existing skills.”
Originally published as Central Coast start-up offering world first technology for renters