How to handle late rent payments: a thorn in everyone’s side
Renter scams – How to prevent tenant fraud
The best way to collect rent as a landlord
What is Build to Rent?
While still a relatively new concept in Australia, Build to Rent or BTR is an alternative residential asset class that is gaining traction, with growth estimated at a $10 billion pipeline. Purpose built rental apartments are changing how residential developments are designed, developed, owned, and experienced by a tenant.
With housing affordability issues, some Australians are being priced out of the market, there are also many looking at a more urban lifestyle that offers a vast range of amenities within their communities and higher energy (and cost) efficiencies to run homes. Build-to-rent is fast becoming an attractive option for investors with steady yields and a diversified income source.
But what exactly is Build to Rent and what impact is it likely to have on the Australian rental landscape?
What is Build to Rent?
Build-to-rent properties are typically large-scale residential high-rise blocks where all the apartments are built, owned and maintained by a single owner (developer) and are rented to tenants rather than offered for sale, usually on mid to long term leases.
Build to rent buildings come in many varieties, often incorporating ‘mixed use’ with retail and/or office space including co-workspaces as part of the development and public amenity such as green spaces.
From an asset class perspective, BTR is a residential product which is entrenched in commercial asset principals. The ownership structure often being held by either a fund or REIT, the capital flow which funds BTR developments, and how these developments are managed. While BTR at an operational level is relatively similar to standard property management principals, there are some stark differences particularly around metrics which are needed to be reported on during particular points in the cycle of the asset.
BTR in Australia is still in infancy compared to other regions globally. The US has a mature BTR economy starting over 30years ago known as multifamily in the US, it is the largest investment asset class with 31.4% of Americans living in multifamily housing. While the UK is about 10 years ahead of Australia and continuing to gain pace accounting for 20% of all new housing builds.
Who owns Build to Rent developments?
Big offshore players include funds and firms such as Greystar, APG, Ivanhoe Cambridge, GIC, UBS, Blackstone, Morgan Stanley, Oxford, Hines, Frasers and Sentinel, while in Australia Sentinel, Frasers, Urban Property Group, Mirvac, Cromwell and Meriton are all active in the BTR market.
In Australia, most BTR developments (around 65%) are concentrated in Melbourne, with both Sydney and the Brisbane market “gaining momentum”.
How does BTR differ from other residential rentals?
| Developer, Fund, REIT Owned & Operated | The conventional developer model is build-to-sell where an investor purchases an individual apartment or unit to own and then rents it out either via a property management agency or self-managed. |
| Single Title | BTR apartment complexes are held under a single title rather than strata and are professionally managed, typically with on-site management and operating teams. |
| Resident Experience | The focus is on the Resident being offered better facilities & amenities, flexible lease arrangements and mid to longer term tenancy even low or no bond requirements. |
| Community culture | The buildings typically include a number of amenities from pools and shared outdoor spaces, gyms, yoga studios, communal working spaces, community gardens and even cinemas & concierge. |
What does the future hold for Build to Rent in Australia?
Over a third of Australian households are renting, this is for a multitude of reasons from housing affordability to lifestyle preferences. The Build to Rent model is designed to attract and keep tenants, offering vast array of facilities, more secure and longer term tenancies and onsite maintenance making it an attractive offering and driving demand.
It is also a great long-term option for investors and even proven formidable against economic cycles. State governments including NSW and Victoria have made significant policy and funding commitments, including an NSW 50% land tax discount for new BTR developments, however current tax laws affecting GST and stamp duty do not cater for BTR investments.
To learn more about the impact Build to Rent on the Australian property industry, join us at MRI Ascend APAC as we bring together a panel of industry experts from property management, strata, social housing and the commercial sector to weigh in on the challenges and opportunities BTR brings as we ask them: Will Build-to-rent change apartment living in Australia and is this better for residents and the property industry?
The future of trust accounting software
This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.
As workplaces are becoming increasingly digitalised, trust accounting processes are becoming simpler and more streamlined. Most agencies have now turned to customised software – not only does it offer more efficient solutions, but agencies can also have better security and ‘trust’ in their trust accounting functions.
Chief executive officer of REINSW Tim McKibbin shares some of his insights on how trust accounting is being positioned as the next likely candidate for disruption and change in real estate, particularly in the property management sector.
What is bad debt recovery?
This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.
One of the main responsibilities you have as a property manager is ensuring your customers’ investments remain profitable. The ideal scenario is that they have a steady flow of income from rental payments, but when a tenant defaults on their lease do you have measures in place to help your customers recover them?
Having a debt collection strategy is important for any agency for a couple of reasons – it increases debt recovery rates, helps in creating an efficient arrears and debt management process and helps maintain a positive relationship with your customers. Let’s take a look at ways to help you manage and recover bad debts.
Visitor management software: is it right for you?
Curiosity is always healthy.
As a business leader – either for a small, privately-held organisation or a large corporate – it’s always good to ask questions about your current course of operations.
Mostly, are you being as efficient as possible?
MRI Software has had the opportunity to respond to thousands of questions coming from organisations deploying (and thinking about deploying) visitor management software.
The number of questions from a prospective client of ours can range from just one right through to over a hundred… which is understandable, it’s all in the context. You don’t want to make the wrong decision for your firm and be spending money where it’s not needed.
By being cautious with your approach and conducting thorough research on the range of options available to you, there’s lots of potential to increase safety for your stakeholders.
What is Visitor Management Software?
Visitor management software is an automated (and streamlined) digital system that tracks and captures information about who is on and off-site, ensuring you don’t have someone wandering around the backend of your factory without your knowledge. It typically requires each entrant to report basic information (such as name and phone number) so that contact can be made if something goes awry.
Why is Visitor Management Important?
For some organisations, visitor management is a critical element of health and safety and can help you respond to a crisis (like a fire) and make sure everyone is accounted for. Through a visitor management software solution, you can also review accurate data about who is present at your site for building security. In turn, you can better protect your employees and reduce the risk of malpractice.
Other benefits of visitor management include:
- authorising and monitoring guests and employees
- pre-screening entrants for on-site requirements
- real-time visibility provided of who is on-site
- arrival notifications to hosts
- workplace data insights and reporting
Questions to Ask When Choosing Visitor Management Software
Therefore, it shouldn’t be a question of “do I need visitor management software?” and rather, which one do you need? There are plenty of providers out there but narrowing down the key features your firm requires can help you put your money where it matters.
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1. Do you want visitors to receive hazard alerts when they sign in?
You don’t want to be held liable for a guest who gets hurt because they didn’t know about a hazard on-site. If you choose a visitor management solution that immediately notifies site entrants of any risks to their health and wellbeing, you’ll be better protecting both them… and yourself.
When you consider this feature and apply it to your workplace, you might quickly realise it’s a ‘must have’ for managing safety and incident awareness on-site.
2. If a visitor had an accident on-site would it be useful to prove that your organisation advised the visitor of the hazard?
Compliance, compliance, compliance. It’s always getting stricter, and so are the threats posed to a business that is only operating with the best of intentions.
Accidents happen, but you don’t want to be on the firing line for someone else’s carelessness. Therefore, to comply with your legal obligation of implementing high-quality Health & Safety practices, you might want to be able to demonstrate that you took all the precautions possible.
The correct visitor management system for your organisation would do this for you, providing evidence of the alert that was sent to your guest, when the information was sent, and whether or not it was agreed to. In the event of a workplace injury (or, devastatingly, death) the ability to demonstrate good practice can make all the difference to your livelihood.
3. Would you like your sign-in kiosk to advise non-approved visitors to wait until someone comes out to meet them?
In a busy business environment, it’s incredibly challenging to have someone at the front desk at all times.
Even if you have a full-time team working on reception to greet and process visitors, that doesn’t mean they won’t have to take a phone call or pop to the photocopier whilst completing some admin work. In the meantime, a guest might decide to go looking for someone to speak to.
After all, why should they wait around when they’re not sure what to do or how long they’ll be hovering for?
If you have visitor management software in place, you can reduce the likelihood of unwelcomed wanderers and ensure that your security team (or another nominated person) is advised of their arrival, and have attempted to sign in. This is a particularly vital visitor management feature for any:
- research centres
- local and central government facilities
- data centres
- other high-security sites
That prohibits walk-up visitors; especially people who don’t have an invitation. Managing these potential security breaches by automating visitor management is often a much-overlooked requirement until it’s too late. Don’t fall into that trap.
4. Do you want specific conditional warnings, instructions or questions to be presented to a visitor, and, do you want to notify anyone internally of their answers?
Say you are a food manufacturer following laws and your visitor answers “yes” to having visited a farm in the last 30 days or “no” to a request to wear a hairnet at all times while onsite.
This is a red flag that should immediately have alarm bells ringing, so make sure you choose a visitor management solution that can not only offer these crucial pop-up questions but alert of you any incorrect answers.
Triggering alerts against pre-defined precautionary measures is a must… otherwise your visitor management system is just a smart ID printer.
5. Do you need to ask visitors the same set of questions every time, even if they are repeat visitors?
This is a two-part question.
Firstly; is it a necessity to confirm some information every time a guest checks in or can you capture visitor information on their first visit and then only ask them for it again 3 months later? This visitor management feature contributes to creating an amazing visitor experience rather than creating a time-consuming and unnecessary flaw in your registration process.
Say, for example, John Doe arrives on-site for his first visit and is asked for his name, where he is visiting from, and who he is meeting with. Then, after collecting this PII data, he might have to acknowledge your NDA, review evacuation procedures, and agree to any other visitor policy rules.
It ends up taking John four minutes to sign in, but does this need to happen every time? Consider if:
- A one-time response is enough.
- You should let him agree that his answers are the same as last time.
- It’s possible for him to verify his name and host for each sign-in.
- You want to set a rule that asks for updated details every 3 months.
MRI’s Visitor Management Software for Real Estate
It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it?
The best visitor management solution for properties would be able to do it all, and ours can.
MRI OnLocation helps organisations globally protect the people and places that power their workplace. Use our powerful visitor management software to track and manage everyone on-site.
Get a free trial of OnLocation today and strengthen the security of your workplace, instill confidence in employee safety, and protect intellectual property by taking control of guest access.