1. How did you get into the property industry?
When I left university I didn’t want to go back to living with my parents, so I told them that I wanted to buy a house first and then I would look for a job…they thought I was mad, but I managed it! That got me onto the ladder of being a landlord and I was able to let out some of the rooms in that first property I bought. This gave me the platform for developing a residential portfolio and over time I realised the inefficiencies and antiquated nature of the residential letting space in the UK. I was really frustrated with using traditional agents because 40 per cent of my trading occurred when they were shut. I also wanted to do my own viewings but yet I still had to pay the full fee.
2. Can you give any examples on how Upad differs from its competitors?
We put the customer at the heart of the business. Everything we do from our processes to systems, to how we package up our offerings is all with the customer at the forefront of our minds. We have seen this be the right model because we recently won the Best Online Agent award at the ESTAS, as voted for by our customers.
Upad also differs because landlords don’t want an e-commerce platform, they still very much want someone to speak to who is trusted by them. This differentiates us from our competitors who don’t have an exceptionally well trained customer service team that specialise in customer satisfaction.
3. How does proptech enhance Upad?
When a tenant, guarantor and landlord are going through the tenant referencing process, Upad has built the bespoke technology and cradle to grave solution that keeps all those informed in the process informed of where they are at. This is akin to Amazon informing you about goods you have ordered from their website.
Secondly, Upad has purpose built all our processes and systems, which historically were manually driven (as the high street operates). Upad is the only business that incorporates proptech into their model rather than relying on individuals to manage the process. Upad has 1/15th of the number of employees in its tenant referencing team compared to the equivalent high street model.
4. Has business been affected by Brexit, the current economic climate and the recent election?
Not directly although going forward we know the majority of landlords still want to increase their portfolio size rather than maintain their current position but this has decreased because of the uncertainty that Brexit and the general election has brought about. We still see a rental market in the UK but maybe landlords are not going to be as aggressive as they were thinking of 12 months ago.
Secondly, landlords in the UK need to be aware of consequences of the current economic climate, in that changes to mortgage interest relief and the fact that rents are continuing to rise at a greater rate to peoples take home pay, means rent arrears which already affect a third of landlords in the last 12 months is going to become a bigger issue going forward. ‘Buyer beware’ therefore prevails as the uncertainty of the current economic position continues.
5. What does Upad hope to achieve the most in the next 12 months?
We want to further develop our tech platform with new services and products to help landlords with the support they require to run their business. We will also be launching various partnerships that will further drive the awareness of Upad going forward.
6. What property headline would you most like to read this year?
That UK landlords have crossed the chasm from using antiquated channels like classified ads and Gumtree and been forced to outsource their business activities to high street agents who do not in the main act in their best interests.
