Goodlord, a ‘proptech’ company whose technology platform digitises the residential lettings process for agents, landlords and tenants, is launching a new tenant move-in product, Goodlord Go.
It handles tenants’ council tax and water supply registrations, and also provides a utilities, broadband and TV comparison and switching facility.
It can also arrange other services, including removals, cleaning and dog walking.
Goodlord Go is fully integrated with the Goodlord platform, saving agents time, whilst providing an opportunity for them to earn additional revenue from referral fees, for example if the tenant switches utilities.
For agents who choose to use the new move-in product, Goodlord will also be offering tenant referencing for £5.
Founded in 2014, Goodlord aims to streamline the lettings process for agents, landlords and tenants, with the aim of providing a better renting experience for everyone whilst generating more revenue for agents.
William Reeve, CEO of Goodlord, said: “Our mission is to make renting as simple and transparent as possible. So I’m pleased that, following a successful customer trial, we are rolling out Goodlord Go and £5 referencing from May 1.”
In January, Goodlord announced a restructure of its business with almost 40 redundancies. It said these were in sales and marketing, and that it was continuing to recruit product and engineering staff.
Shortly afterwards, Reeve took over as CEO from co-founder Richard White.
Given its focus on transparency around the lettings process I wonder if Goodlord would care to share how much revenue they expect from standing in the middle of the relationship between the letting agent and the utility provider. Hopefully all of this revenue will be distributed between agents. With a ban on tenant fees looming I don’t see how another middleman taking a piece of a letting agent’s potential commission is customer focussed. If Goodlord retain any revenue then what is the point in doing referencing cheaply, giving with one hand and taking with the other.
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Thanks for your comment, Tim. It’s no secret that we, or any other provider in this space, takes a cut; it’s how we’re able to provide this service and the Goodlord platform to our clients. There are a number of companies in the industry offering switching services to tenants and they too will take a cut. We can confidently say that our cut isn’t as big as most but the service we’re providing to tenants goes above and beyond (see point in article about dog walking. We even arranged Spanish lessons for a tenant last week!). It would be extremely time consuming for agents to set up and facilitate all these switching services and in fact, we remove the burden of them having to register the tenant for council tax and water – both of which are services we don’t make money from and which save our customers much needed time.
The biggest value in using Goodlord is streamlining the pre-tenancy process, saving agents time and money. Additionally, the uptake of our landlord insurance and tenant move-in services has been extremely high as agents are keen to make additional revenue in light of the tenant fee ban. We’re fortunate that our platform provides the perfect delivery mechanism to offer such services which means that our clients will see greater take-up rates of these products and ultimately, more ancillary revenue.
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Hey Goodlord, Thanks for taking the time to reply although I’m still not certain why an agent would accept someone sitting in the middle of the relationship between them and the switching provider if the aim is to maximise revenue. There are at least three referencing company who pass this data for free and take no commission from either the switching companies or the agent, leaving all the money to the agent. It is swings and roundabouts I guess. Cheap reference + monthly usage fee = low commission. More expensive reference = higher commission.
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It is not possible to complete a comprehensive tenant reference for a fee of £5.00. They must be making money from somewhere otherwise the business will fail. Perhaps it will……
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Thanks for your comment, Andy. As you know, Goodlord is not just a referencing provider, it is a platform that streamlines the entire lettings process for agents, landlords and tenants. On top of the platform, we provide insurance products, tenant services and referencing.
Over the last few months, we have heavily invested in our referencing process and technology, making our referencing team extremely productive. At this productivity level, it is indeed feasible for us to offer £5 referencing when our customers take Goodlord Go. This may seem impossible to a dedicated referencing company but Goodlord is a technology firm capable of re-defining some of the established industry norms. We’d be more than happy to discuss how our internal processes have enabled us to provide a fully comprehensive reference for £5. Drop us a line, set up a time and let’s chat!
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No you can’t complete a professional refernce for £5.00. You will burn the Paymentshield Rent Guraantee and have no choice but to increase prices for references and rent guarantee. For 8 years we have charged £90.00 for a 12 month Nil Excess rent guatantee. What do you charge? We do the following for references, what do you do?
• Electoral Roll verification • County Court Judgments/Bankruptcy/IVAs check • Non-disclosed address search • Income verification via employer, pension provider, accountant or wealth manager as required • Previous/current landlord reference • Applicant cross checking if a reference has been completed by Let Alliance in the past • Confirmation of home ownership where required • Confirmation of overseas income and savings where required • Full right to rent check, with reminders sent automatically when right to rent is expiring • ID validation • Home Office checks • Residency confirmation • Financial Sanctions and AML check • Politically exposed persons check. Collect bank ststements. Review tenancy agreement if previous home was directly rented via a landlord….. I could go on.
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So they are now going to take and use our client data..
seems like they have lost all focus from original pitch of ‘revolutionising tenent on-boarding’ to help us agents.
The Goodlord service is way too expensive anyway.
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Goodlord’s mission has always been to make renting simple and transparent for everyone involved. The relationship with the tenant and the ownership of their data remains with the agent.
Our customers typically see at least 3x their investment by streamlining their pre-tenancy process and enhancing the customer journey. Please email your customer success manager who will be happy to discuss and ensure you are experiencing the full financial savings Goodlord creates as well as a positive return in your pocket.
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Am I missing something here? When a Tenant moves in, I find out the suppliers and email them with meter readings and new tenant details? How is there money in that?
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Correct, CountryLass, there is no money to be made for you in doing this. It just takes you time! Goodlord Go is a concierge service that offers tenants great deals on a range of services, from energy to broadband, tv, removals, cleaning etc. When tenants opt to take any of these services, we’re able to pay our agent customers a cut of the referral revenue, whilst saving you the hassle of having to email utilities and council tax providers.
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