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• 7-fold increase in home-working
• Just under half of all companies (45%) use separate accounts software in addition to their property management systems
• Two-thirds of property managers handle less than 20 blocks and 2% of properties managed are in the retirement sector
• All companies with 11%+ growth in the last 12 months attribute expansion to word-of-mouth marketing
Nearly one third (32%) of Property Managers see technology helping to improving efficiency in the role in years to come, according to the research in our State of the Nation survey. When asked which systems had revolutionised their way of working, Property Managers cited a variety of answers with the most popular being smart phones or tablets, and an online portal proving that the property management industry is keeping up with an ever-increasing mobile world.
Substantiating this trend, the proportion of home based Property Managers has increased 7-fold from 0.95% in 2012 to 8%, and email which could be picked up on a smartphone or tablet was deemed the most important software to the role, highlighting the rise in mobile working. Corroborating this trend, 58% of respondents would least like to be without their laptop, smartphone or tablet. 16% said they thought their job would become more automated. However, not all Property Managers are optimistic about the impact of technology on the industry: 13% said they didn’t think technology would change their role at all.
Delving deeper into the software supported by this hardware, over one-third (36%) gave a rating of 4 out of 5 when asked to rate the effectiveness of their Property Management system and just under half of companies (45%) use separate accounts software. 36% of those companies who used Qube or Propman (the most popular Property Management systems) used separate accounts software. This raises the question – why do these organisations not take full advantage of the complete service of these recognised market leaders?
In an interesting development over the last three years since the previous industry survey, two-thirds of Property Managers now manage up to 20 developments with a third managing over 21. In 2012, the opposite was true. This seems to suggest developments in efficiencies as Property Managers are now managing the same level of units over fewer developments. Over half of blocks managed (57%) were new builds and four companies managed purely this type of block. With the growth of the ageing market, it will be interesting to see how the percentage of retirement properties under management changes over the next few years.
Sitting hand-in-hand with the trend of fewer developments is the reduction in management fees. Similar to the 2012 survey, the average management fee was £101-200 although the actual percentage had dropped. The percentage charging £100 or under had increased. With the turbulent and ever changing property management industry this could be for a number of reasons – for example, more competition in the market forcing companies to lower their fees, increase in efficiencies with lower overheads, new entrants to market and existing companies expanding into new markets.
Another noteworthy trend to emerge was the perception of traditional advertising as an effective form of marketing. Nearly all companies (90%) said that word of mouth helped attract new business. Actual advertising and marketing appeared to be less effective proving that reputation and an online presence remain the most significant ways of attracting new business.
All of the companies which had grown more than 10% in the past 24 months attracted business through word or mouth. Interestingly the 18% who had only grown 0-2% had attracted new business through direct campaigns, perhaps indicating that this form of marketing is less effective than the company’s reputation in the sector.
Likewise all companies who had grown by more than 50% in the last five years had predominantly attracted business through word of mouth. Post-recession, a healthy growth indicator of over 30% is apparent in 44% of respondent companies.
Mark North, one of our Key Client Managers said: “The aim of the survey is to learn about the industry directly from those that work within it. With their help we have gained a better insight into the operation of the property management industry across a variety of areas. This year we took the survey online and were thrilled with the immediate response we received. Thank you to all of those who contributed and to those who will take the time to read the survey. We hope the survey will prove to be a useful tool for property management companies as a benchmark and we are excited to share the results with the industry.”
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