Isn't It About Time To Fully Embrace Property Technology?

Posted by The Landsite on 19th July 2022 -

Technology vs. Tradition

The property industry has traditionally been a slower adopter of technology, often to the chagrin of homebuyers left frustrated by lengthy processes and a lack of transparency around progress.

With over 25 years’ industry experience, we have seen first-hand the difficulty in persuading developers to part with traditional ways of doing things, as many other industries jumped into the post-Y2K tech rush.

Due to this hesitance, there was a lack of options for a number of years should developers look to break new ground.

Disrupting the Old Ways

In the early 2010s, Classic Folios – Spaciable’s parent company – looked to disrupt the industry with myHomefiles, a portal that could be designed in each developer’s branding and stored important documents to share with homebuyers. This pioneering product was used by major UK developers, including Redrow, Linden Homes and Berkeley Group.

This immediate popularity gave weight to the idea that the industry was beginning to embrace technology, accelerating Classic Folios’ development of myHomefiles next iteration – Spaciable.

David Graydon, CEO of Classic Folios and Spaciable, identified a need to create a more interactive and comprehensive platform that built on Classic Folios’ value of ‘binding relationships’. The concept was to build a portal that had separate interfaces for developer admins and home users, allowing them to interact with each other, while having access to the most relevant tools for their specific needs. 

Spaciable Launches

In 2017, Spaciable was launched and turned high profile heads in the industry, with Cala Homes, Hill, Countryside Properties and Higgins amongst the first developers to sign up.

The bespoke digital handover portal quickly began to help sales and customer care teams on-board and support home users through an array of cost and time effective solutions.

Building on myHomefiles’ functionality, Spaciable can be branded to match either a developers’ corporate colours and logos or change per development, with custom URLs and embedding also possible.

The admin can use their dashboard to oversee entire developments, specific phases and individual plots, communicating with home users at each level, sharing documents, and inviting them to events or setting reminders in the calendar.  

The home user’s dashboard is tailored to their plot, containing details of fixtures and fittings, a library of relevant documents, a digital conveyancing tool, helpful FAQs, a contact directory, an area guide, a defect reporting system, and much more, providing a one-stop shop of accessible information.

Constantly Evolving

Adaptability is key to Spaciable, with the flexible build allowing the development team to seamlessly introduce new features or improve functionality without interfering with the user experience. This has allowed timely responses to feedback and a customer-centric approach to rolling out updates.

The flexibility also ensures Spaciable plays nicely with other systems, with defect reporting software, including Fixflo and Clixifix having been integrated into the portal. An API also enables Spaciable to work with developers’ existing systems, allowing plot details to be automatically populated when someone registers interest on a developers’ website.

Spaciable has grown from an aftercare solution to a one-stop-shop for all stages of the homebuying process. A digital conveyancing tool speeds up legal completion and allows for more transparency for buyers, who are guided through the reservation process by a digital handholding tool that breaks the journey up into bite sized chunks, mapping progress and highlighting any tasks that are outstanding. Once they have moved into their new home, they can access a wide range of information about their specific property, as well as receive notifications from the developer.

Something for Everyone

Spaciable is designed to support private and build to rent developers, housing associations and managing agents.

Its features have helped some of the UK’s most prominent developers to:

·      Reduce time spent on customer care calls, with FAQs alone answering approximately 34,871 queries each year

·      Gain the equivalent of almost an extra working week each year from self-served FAQs

·      Achieve legal completion in an average of 16 days - a quarter of the national timescale!

·      Reduce customer care costs by around 79% compared to average outsourcing cost

·      Reach sustainability targets, with the paper equivalent of over 14,000 trees on Spaciable

One of the things that sets Spaciable apart from alternative solutions is how user friendly it is – both for admins and home users, who are often overlooked in the presentation of PropTech.

Spaciable has the benefit of Classic Folios’ industry knowledge, reputation and content creation. Spaciable therefore keeps the end user in mind in all facets of the portal, as it is ultimately an extension of a developer’s customer care. While speeding up processes and reducing customer care costs help sales and customer care teams hit targets and improve efficiency, providing access to a branded portal that is as easy-to-use as it is comprehensive and keeps home users coming back elevates the brand, increases referrals and improves customer satisfaction scores – so much so that when the latest HBF Customer Satisfaction Survey scores were published, 100% of those who took Spaciable received at least 4 stars, with 60% receiving a perfect 5.

Spaciable is used by over 50,000 homeowners and tenants, with around 3,500 new users logging in each month, highlighting the growing reach of the portal.

A Shared Future

Classic Folios has championed sustainability in the property industry for the last decade, with development specific Home User Guides helping developers achieve high star ratings from the Code for Sustainable Homes, and myHomefiles being used to upload maps and timetables for local public transport.

Through the introduction of Spaciable, these features have been taken to the next level. Through digitalisation of processes, Spaciable drastically reduces paper consumption, and has therefore become a key part of numerous developers’ sustainable visions, including Cala Homes, who set a goal of reducing paper consumption by 75%. With so many important documents, certificates and manuals being uploaded to Spaciable, it is home to the digital equivalent of over 14,400 trees’ worth of paper.

Utilising the company’s experienced content creation team, a revamped Sustainability and Community Guide was recently launched, boosting developers’ ESG credentials, while educating home users on how to efficiently operate sustainable features in their homes and improve the carbon footprint through their daily habits.

Spaciable will soon be launching Spaciable Living – an app that is designed to improve the overall experience around living on a shared development. As well as facility booking and key and parcel management, home users will be encouraged to build communities through a group chat feature on the app, facilitating dog walking groups, book clubs and running clubs.

Now Free to Use

In 2022, Spaciable made the decision to launch the product as its own brand and restructure as software as a service (SaaS), with developers able to sign up to three packages: Free, Essentials and Elite.

Through Spaciable Free, more developers can benefit from key features, regardless of budgets, ultimately raising the standard of customer care across the industry. With the premium tiers unlocking additional features, developers can trial the portal before determining which features are a priority.

Managing Director of Spaciable, David Graydon, made the following announcement at the launch of Spaciable Free:

“In the five years since Spaciable launched, we have been constantly developing the portal behind the scenes, responding to feedback and the changing landscape of the property industry, to establish it as the gold-standard in handover solutions. With Spaciable Free, we plan on bringing even more developers on-board, so even those with budgetary constraints can offer elite customer support and test-drive the portal without any financial obligation. The two premium suites have been carefully curated to give developers maximum flexibility when upgrading.”

Where to Sign Up

Private and build to rent developers, housing associations and managing agents will be able to sign up to Spaciable by contacting [email protected] or visiting www.spaciable.io

Learn more about Spaciable on The Landsite click here

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