The mistake that cost real estate companies dearly - Are you making it?
Real estate companies make information inaccessible to both managers and employees, costing them a lot of money every year. Does this apply to you too?
Does any of this ring a bell? Having to...
Jump between different programmes to find information?
Export data to Excel and PDFs?
Cut and paste in Excel and create different pivot tables and charts?
Search through hundreds of files?
Do the same job over and over again every month?
Deal with programmes that not everyone understands or knows how to use to find information?
Say or hear "no more buying, we've gone over budget" in October?
Yes? Read on and I'll tell you how to get rid of this problem once and for all.
Let's start like this, repeat after me:
Our data belongs to everyone.
Our data belongs to everyone.
Our data belongs to everyone.
Now say it louder for the people in the back.
When I say everyone, I really mean EVERYONE, from the CEO and chairman to the technicians, janitors and receptionists.
Now you might be wondering what the receptionist should do with information about energy use, but the principle is about letting your data flow openly.
Why should my data flow openly to everyone?
Because it saves you a lot of headaches and a lot of money. Let me explain.
You have a property and a team of people who have two main goals (beyond tenant satisfaction):
To ensure that the property is healthy
To stick to the budget
Right now, your technicians are working in the dark. Those who are actually out in the property fixing faults, placing orders for work, don't know how you are doing against budget. This is a big problem.
Very few technicians have continuous access to the budget.
When the budget is reached or exceeded, they feel "well, why didn't I know that six months ago? Maybe I could have done something then instead...". Bummer. And frustrating to have to patch and splice for the rest of the year.
Instead of this scenario, you can have self-motivated, informed technicians who...
Know when it's best to subcontract a job and when it's best to fix it in-house.
Can adjust costs if something has become more expensive than expected
Know how to prioritise issues without being dependent on anyone else
...and above all, have the right conditions to do their job really well AND stay on budget!
When everyone has access to all property and management data at all times, decision-making paths are shortened and it becomes easier for them to make proactive, correct decisions quickly.
Now you might be thinking "well, they have a login to my very complicated system where you have to look through 37 tabs and do 12 filters and then scan a wall of numbers to find, soooo.....".
But hey. There are a lot of tenants waiting for their cases to be dealt with. It has to be easier than 37 tabs and 12 filters.
How to solve the problem?
Okay! Now that we've agreed on why data should belong to everyone, here are three tips to get you started.
Display important information where employees already are. This could be on the intranet, on TV screens in the break room, on Teams or other channels that everyone has easy access to. Another login and a system to learn is not always the best.
Create an overview together as a team on a regular basis. Look at how you are doing against budget together, which items tend to be more expensive than expected and which properties need a boost.
If you don't already have one, get a business intelligence tool. One that gathers ALL the data in ONE place, so you don't have to spend so much time searching for information, and can instead use the time to actually understand how your properties are doing and come up with solutions.
Homepal is a business intelligence tool designed for real estate companies, and because we already know what kind of insights property companies need, we've already done the work of calculating key figures and building dashboards. All you have to do is grant access to the systems you want to connect, and we'll do the rest.
Want to know more about how it works?
Book a demo here
Take a look at our technical management dashboards
or
get in touch with us!
