Inventory assembly is both time-consuming and tedious. FACT! Ask any letting agent/landlord.

Current Assembly Methods

There are several methods available to enable an inventory to be assembled. These are:

(*Note that methods 1, 3 and 6 typically have photographic evidence to support them.)

So why is electronic software the best method to assemble an inventory? Simply:

1. More time-effective
2. No ‘secondary transcription’ time/cost
3. No human transcription errors
4. Consistency of terminology
5. End report robustness
6. Fast service turnaround
7. Photo-support inclusive

Remember: well-designed software is essential for quality inventories: it is ‘best practice’!

What is The Bottom Line?

The most crucial factor  time

During this ‘time’ (that is, time at the property) all items, descriptions and photos need to be added accurately and efficiently by the inventory clerk.

Vital things to remember for best practice inventories are:

• Written text is the key part of the inventory document ( especially if a dispute arises )
• The inventory clerk should be the one adding the items.
• Descriptions and details should ideally be added on-site when you see them.
• Evidence of an incomplete or inaccurate inventory loses credibility at ADR (dispute resolution)

Methods 3 – 5 in particular, remove all the written aspect on-site, which invariably takes the longest time to do. Time-saving on-site methods tend to be a compromise by letting an admin/secretary with less experience compile the inventory later. This is quite simply bad practice for two very important reasons: 1. It requires huge amounts of admin time, trawling through video/photos. 2. Inevitably typographical mistakes occur.

The eventual purpose of an inventory is to pass ADR scrutiny by an Adjudicator

Software Benefits

Electronic software addresses many of these problems.

1. Inventory Clerk on-site assembly time is reduced: data-entry typing is minimalised.
2. Items are created and added immediately whilst on site.
3. Photographs are taken within the software package and immediately form part of the completed report.
4. The document is fully completed by the clerk at the property: no transcription errors/time.
5. Document availability for client access time reduced.
6. 24/7 online accessibility for clients

Why Is Software Not Being Used by All Inventory Assemblers?

Current inventory software has limitations. Some are limited to one operating system, have incomplete databases, or simply function poorly, adding to rather than saving on-site assembly. Others have restrictive software/hardware purchase and on-going maintenance costs. Then there’s the inventory upload cost!

These and other reasons have resulted in a reluctance to take the electronic route, despite its potential.

What Does The Future Hold?

Optimise wants to raise and then set the bar.

As a web application, Optimise will be accessible to all operating-system platforms and work on any standards-compliant smartphone or PDA device that has internet access via a browser.

Its comprehensive, intuitive, easy-access database, will dramatical reduce on and off-site inventory assembly and improve document report quality. It will thus eliminate secondary-transcription forever.

Take a look at Optimise potential benefits to your company. Oh, and notice the cost too!

You will be pleased to know that April has been a good month for Optimise development.

Front-end functionality has progressed and been improved: database accessibility revised.

With dedicated resource availability scheduled for the next 6 weeks, our target date for launch looks still to be likely.

Keep checking in.

Optimise Development Team

I love applications. And having been an iPhone user for over 2 + 1/2 years I’m intrigued by them. I love trying out new apps, whether they are for work or leisure. Applications have the power to reach lots of people quickly.

I think that applications should be fun and easy to use. I’ve also looked into iPhone app development, to get a better idea of, and appreciate the work involved in producing different types of applications.

So what I thought I’d do here is take a look at a couple of applications in the property market field and briefly explain what I like about them, seeing how they compare with each other. I’m aiming to find out what principles we can draw on to utilise in the development of our software Optimise.

Mobile property market applications

Let’s get straight to it. The two applications I’ve decided upon are Zoopla and Rightmove. Although I’ve only had short time with both so far, the basic principle behind them is this:

• select where you are
• select whether you are buying or renting a property
• begin browsing properties
• call up the agent and request more details

Both applications can be found on the iPhone apps store or on their respective websites.

Zoopla

Features

Firstly I commend the app for being accessible and very smooth. Once I selected the ‘current location’ and decided I was ‘buying’, several properties then popped up on the GPS map view. (which it did quickly) Selecting a ‘pin’ would give me a small pop-up of the property along with it’s price value. If I was happy with the price and location, more details could be accessed by going into the view for that property.

The application would then load relevant pictures and display them along with the property description. Details of how to access the property by the nearest motorway route were also shown.

It appears on Zoopla that larger properties tend to have more pictures and description than the smaller properties.

The dimensions of the rooms are listed on some properties, which is particularly useful if you are looking for just the right sized place, it’s not going to be too big or too small. The agent could then be called or emailed for further information.

I really like how the application provided just what you need when you need it. There’s no beating around the bush, no unnecessary steps or actions to interrupt me. I expected a result, and the app delivered as expected.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having only used this app briefly, I would recommend it as a mobile app to view local properties. I enjoyed using it because it did what it was supposed to and it did it well.

Rightmove

Features

I commend this app for looking more professional and tidy. The home page is very navigable and un-cluttered.

Initially it took a little longer for the GPS to find my current location, and a short while to load the local properties after that. However some first time pop-ups appeared which disrupted the flow a little bit.

Let me point out that Rightmove app works slightly differently to Zoopla. Instead of showing a map view and selecting a pin to choose a property, I was presented with a list of properties instead, which was interesting. Starting from the top with the nearest property to the location that I set it to.

Selecting the property opened up the details page, where I could review the necessary details of that property. A few nice features like the ‘full description’, ‘view on map’ and ‘photos’ could be accessed as separate pages. The menu along the bottom of the screen includes ‘saved searches’ and ‘saved properties’ allowing for regular users to access previous searches efficiently. Again this all came across in a professional format.

This application is user friendly and self explanatory whilst coming across in a more professional and structured manner, no pun intended.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would recommend this application because it is structured better and is less cluttered on each view, making it more user friendly and easy to follow.

So which one would you choose?

To be honest I enjoyed using both the apps. I like the Zoopla app for the map view and pin selection method, which acquired properties quickly. I also like the Rightmove app for looking more refined.

Both applications did what they were supposed to do. Personally I prefer the Rightmove application due to it being more aesthetically appealing, and more professional looking. It also included some nice features that improved the way to get what I needed more efficiently, despite occasional slowness or interruptions.

So there you have it. Two applications that do the same thing in slightly differing ways, but proving to be good at what they do.

As an app-enthusiast I recognise that apps need to be simple, efficient and enjoyable to use. Captivating the user is important, and ensuring that an app does what it’s suppose to do when needed, is vital.

How does this benefit Optimise development?

To put it simply, our knowledge of applications and software is super important to us. We love to see what features work well for different applications, and try to avoid the bad ones. In a way simplicity is key. Making a product do something that is fancy or has a feature of limited use is really unnecessary and is best left out.

We are determined to keep things simple. We want to enjoy using what we’ll produce and to let others enjoy it too. These are our main goals for producing Optimise.

Now onto business…

From the top

First, after a quick précis of recent posts, our team has already mentioned that the software development slowed down a bit. But don’t panic, we’ll be returning to light-speed come the new year. Good news indeed!

And with the new year looming we’ve taken the opportunity to re-focus our efforts. Expectations are high, and we want to channel this excitement into a focused work period for the new year.

Second, we recently completed a move into a new office. As you can imagine things needed ironing out. So we plugged in the steaming iron and straightened out all those little creases. The move went surprisingly well, largely because of the short travel distance and some extra hands offering loads of support.

So that’s basically where we’re at right now. As per usual new posts shall come your way from time to time, so keep checking in.

Extreme Arrears

Before I conclude there is this one situation I came across that I couldn’t help but share (see picture below).  I found this in a news article on Landlords Zone website, dated 10th Dec 2010.

That’s what happens when you get £90,000 into rent arrears

Oh, and it’s good to be back. See you soon.

The figure was also 16% higher than demand during the first three months of the year.

The report continues to highlight that more and more tenants are vying over rented properties. Indicating that the most hotly sought after accommodations are 2 bedroom properties in the South West region.

Tenants have recognised this level of competition and have increased the rate at which they move into a new property. Giving them the best opportunity to acquire a tenancy quickly.

The report concludes by saying:

John Hards, co-managing director of Countrywide Residential Lettings, said: “The number of tenants entering the market is at unprecedented levels, and we have yet to enter the peak season. Student demand for private rental accommodation will increase further with university applications at record levels.”

So taking into account that this increase is just before the annual peak season and with students accommodation needed for the new term, more homeowners and landlords are desperately seeking to leapfrog this increase to meet the demand in time.

With this increase of tenants looking at both long and short term renting of property, naturally, the demand for inventories is going to increase as a result and become more critical should a dispute arise over them. Which – trends show – seems to be increasing as well.

This issue poses some important questions: What type of inventory is best for the tenants and landlords/lettings agents? Does it matter who produces these inventories? What are important factors to consider if a matter goes to dispute resolution?

These issues will be addressed in our very first audio-cast, coming soon. Make sure you don’t miss it by subscribing to our RSS feed!

(read full report on Property Wire)

This further highlights the need for a detailed text-based inventory for landlords. Why? because text is not ambiguous: it’s direct and to-the-point. The report indicates that disputes are on the increase, and as landlords, it is in your best interest to provide full inventory records to avoid losing out, especially with 92% of tenants currently winning disputes, the report claims.

“To minimise disputes, adjudicators need to have as much information as possible to help prove a case.”

What does this mean for us?

We realise that “bare minimum” inventories cause serious problems for landlords. However, it makes getting Optimise™ into your hands even more important now. I know inventories are difficult to produce, having done them myself, and at the moment current solutions cost too much time, money and resources. They are not fun to do either, which makes matters worse.

With Optimise™, inventory production will be the easiest choice, whilst being capable of standing up to dispute resolution. Drastically reducing the time to prepare a robust inventory is the driving force behind Optimise™.  Landlords will be able to produce full-text, robust inventories easily and without any fuss.

Soon you will get the opportunity to provide an inventory you can rely on… what a relief!

I’ll try to keep these posts coming out fairly frequently, hopefully each week, so you can keep up to speed with our progress in developing Optimise and other related news. There’s some exciting stuff coming up.

We Have Lift Off

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks here in the office in the lead up to our official relaunch of our website today. This is a natural development on the previous version of the site as we ramp up towards our product launch. It’s been great to see things come together to this point. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the site, so feel free to leave a comment below.

Pricing

One of the main things we’ve been trying to tie down is our pricing. Given that there’s already a little competition in the marketplace, getting our pricing right is crucial both for us and for our customers. I think we’ve done a pretty good job in putting together a very competitive range of packages to suit you, whatever your inventory needs are. Please let us know what you think.

I know that many of you are extremely eager to test out our application, and Optimise is almost here. In the meantime you can sign up to be notified when we launch our public beta test via the homepage. Remember that the beta is free for any who are interested in it, and will let you experience what Optimise can do for you. I’ll keep you posted as we get more info.

As the beta is an important step in production we need your support to make the most of it. In fact, you can help by signing up for the beta as soon as possible and by telling others about it too.

So there it is, please have a full look around our new website and sign up for the upcoming beta.

See you folks soon.