Welcome back to our Q&A series. In January, UK Build to Rent interviewed Debra Yudolph & Esme Webb of SAY Property Consulting LLP on Build to Rent management. The interview was conducted by video call and consequently provided us with a lot of content. So, we have decided to split this interview into two parts. Please enjoy part two of our conversation with Debra & Esme. If you missed part one, you can read it here.
SAY Property Consulting is an award-winning advisory business specifically established to provide residential, commercial and mixed use management consultancy services to developers, investors and property owners.
In 2021, SAY launched hereSAY, the first mystery shopping service that benchmarks the viewing experience across the Build to Rent industry in the UK. The hereSAY Mystery Shopping Report 2021 reveals key findings and insights into the viewing experience in Build to Rent as well as key recommendations for those looking to improve their lettings experience.
About
Debra has over 25 years’ experience in residential property. Before founding SAY, Debra was at Grainger plc for ten years as Director of Asset and Property Management. Debra is an expert in residential property and asset management with a focus on BTR & improving the customer experience and investor returns.
About
Esme joined SAY in October 2020, after 3 years as Head of Operations for property start-up Flyp. During this time, Esme was responsible for residential assets in eight UK cities, building up a wealth of experience in property management, customer service and operational best-practice. She specialises in operational scaling and efficiency, with a focus on technology led solutions.
Q: Technology within developments and the proptech sector as a whole are growing at an exponential rate. In your opinion, if you had to split the technology requirements within a development into the following 3 sections:
1. The bare minimum a BTR should have in 2022
2. The current market expectation
3. The current best in class / tier one developments
What technology / features would you place into each section?
Debra: I would say that in the current market, the bare minimum is:
- Branded online platform for residents.
- High speed broadband (some people don’t include this in their rent which we were surprised about).
- Fob access (through the front door).
That’s what I would call the bare minimum from a technology perspective but in reality, the bare minimum today should also include:
- Remote and automated monitoring of energy use – not just so you can pay the bills but from an ESG perspective.
- Automated building monitoring for faults – so you know when something’s gone wrong before someone tells you.
- BIM for asset management
- Fob access for all doors
UKBTR: What value do you see in BIM for asset management?
Debra: BIM is regularly used for design but is not being used for ongoing asset management. The benefits are significant – to be able to understand the performance of the building and report on it effectively. Investors will probably start to require this, as they do for commercial building – particularly from an ESG perspective. I think that the effective use of in building technology could improve values of traded assets.
The monitoring of a building’s performance is also really important because it can reduce costs, improve planned maintenance and help to plan for lifecycle costs.
As well as in building technology there will be more use of the Internet Of Things (IOT) – technology such as Hive and Ringo are now commonplace in non BTR homes and washing machine and even kettles with IOT technology are growing in popularity. I’m not going as far as to say we should have fridges that order your food for you but there does need to be more thought about integrating IOT technology into BTR.
Generally we just need to embrace in building technology more than we do but the capital cost is often high, so it may only happen when investors demand it.
Q: We have seen a rise in health & wellbeing amenities being offered to tenants. How do you think these can be provided at a manageable cost to the investor? And, how do you think we can measure this?
Let’s separate each aspect of health and wellbeing – there’s the physical amenity, online courses and support for physical and mental health and the benefits of being part of a community.
Some physical wellbeing amenity is low cost from an operational perspective. As an example, although there is quite a significant capital cost to install a gym, they are actually quite cheap to run. The quality must be as good as a commercial gym otherwise tenants won’t see the value in it from a rental premium perspective, but wellbeing is much broader than a gym.
Companies like Educated Body, who design and operate gyms and wellness spaces have done a huge amount of work enabling online access to all sorts of wellbeing, as a result of Covid which really fast tracked change, and I think that will be the continued direction, physical wellbeing spaces alongside online access and community activities.
If a wellbeing program is designed well, it can really enhance engagement and a sense of community.
I think a balance between physical amenities and online access to health & wellbeing resources is what’s needed.
We need to think more broadly about initiatives like working with local communities, charities, encouraging volunteering, giving people more life skills, more career support, partnerships with mental health organisations. All of that I think will become more commonplace in the future – broader ESG approach rather than a box ticking physical amenity.
We also need to consider how BTR schemes can feel part of a wider community – otherwise people will push back against BTR as a place where wealthier people live in an isolated tower that doesn’t engage more broadly. For places to be successful, they must be mixed and embedded in the community – those are the places that work best.
Community is not about the physical design, it’s about attitude.
It’s can be absolutely fine to have a separate core for affordable housing if all residents are treated equally and feel part of the community. The sense of them and us is often not because of a separate entrance, it’s because the communication is different and approach, and that’s not how you create community. There’s a lot of thinking to do around that.
UKBTR: From my personal experience I can hear what investors would say: ‘how do you manage that process of who pays for the management for incorporating the affordable’?
Debra: This is a real problem at the moment and something that, as consultants we are tackling every day. There is no easy answer but thinking it through with proper budgets and operational plans means that you can do your best to deliver services for all and as I say equality in approach and communication. That’s really critical but we also need to be able to have open and honest conversations, sometimes political correctness stops us tackling the real issues of mixed places, rather than working together for a great solution.
Q: BTR management has the potential to be an outstanding career choice. How do you think we can educate the right people with the right message on the benefits of being a part of this sector?
Who are the right people?
What is the message?
How do management companies retain them?
Debra: We need to attract bright graduates, people from hospitality and retail, but, anyone with a bit of common sense and a positive attitude. Attitude and enthusiasm go a long way.
As for the message – well… it’s a growing sector, there are good fast track opportunities. You can climb quickly compared to other industries, you deal with people & homes (which I think is fascinating) – seeing how people live is interesting. No two days are the same. Its challenging, but there’s often quite structured training which is a positive thing.
How can management companies retain people? Culture is my only answer. People will work hard for a company that’s nice to work for.
Esme might have some views because she didn’t intend to come into this industry
Esme: I think that young people have a dim view of the property industry. So, I don’t think people see it as a particularly exciting career option. But, they also don’t realise the diverse range of skills required. I used to work more in hospitality and it always surprised me the diverse range of skills and backgrounds that people came from, it was one of the most interesting things about the job. But perhaps, it’s quite a closed door industry. When we talk about property, people tend to think of estate agents – that it starts and ends with estate agents.
UKBTR: How would you like it to be marketed to yourself Esme? What would turn your head in terms of a marketing strategy?
Esme: I think people these days are really interested in shaping the future of what lives will look like. So much of that comes down to people’s homes & communities, if they realised how much influence they could have on aspects from developing net zero carbon buildings to ensuring equal access to safe homes.
If people could understand the impact development has, it would be more attractive. Then you bring in the ESG side which is so interesting to young people these days.
There’s so much opportunity to be better and do better. Look at the fashion industry. If you asked 100 people between the age of 20 – 30 for 100 ideas on how to make homes more impactful, they could probably come up with loads of great ideas that no one has thought of yet. So, perhaps the property industry is seen as being a bit stuck in the past.
Debra: It’s a bit elitist as well. I think that so much of the sector comes from a certain place and so it’s difficult to navigate. And, Esme is completely right, the industry has an opportunity to influence so much but we don’t really portray it that way.
UKBTR: Esme I think you’re right. People aren’t seeing it as an opportunity to shape the world of tomorrow or to build a better world.
Debra: We are definitely taking big strides but we need to get a far more diverse range of people to come into the industry.
A Big Thank You to Debra & Esme…
hereSAY’s Mystery Shopping Report 2021 is available to purchase now by contacting Esme at esme@sayproperty.co.uk
If you have any other questions regarding this interview, you can reach out to SAY here. If you missed part 1 of the interview, read it here.
Our content calendar has enough free space for one or two more contributors to this series. If you feel you would offer value and have experience in build to rent investment, design, management or ESG – contact us here.
Thank you for reading.