Case study: Living by Scape
How Homeppl helped Living by Scape's opening and initial lease-up period of their new building become a success
Living by Scape is a new built-to-rent brand under the Scape umbrella. Opened in June 2021, this new approach to renting set foot in Guildford, offering private studio apartments with access to a variety of shared social spaces.
With short term rentals as well as flexible contracts, tenants can stay as long or short as they like, while benefiting from included bills and fortnightly cleans. This is the first built-to-rent product from Scape, with plans to expand into central London very soon.
The Challenge: Risk Assessment
With the creation of the new built-to-rent brand came the challenge of having to do much more analytical reference checks on potential tenants. With internationals, graduates and young professionals highly attracted to the product, Living by Scape needed to find a referencing provider that would be capable of providing referencing to such a wide pool of people in a timely manner to not hold up the leasing process. It was imperative that the tenants would have a seamless and easy-to-follow journey, with the possibility to ask questions along the way if needed.
Furthermore, the outcomes of the check needed to be clear and concise with as much financial detail as possible to provide a reliable risk assessment on whether or not to let the property to the tenant. Especially with recent graduates and international interest in the product, it was important to find a provider that could approve tenants despite potentially not having a credit file in the UK yet.
Plus, during the lease-up period, a high volume of checks was to be carried out and, due to time constraints, the system needed to be up and running within a few days in order to approve tenants straight away.
The major challenge was that no other referencing company in the UK had the analytical and data enrichment power that could accurately qualify the risk of non-standard applicants.
Choosing Homeppl's Risk Assessment Product
After careful consideration and demo’s of various different referencing providers, Homeppl stood out as the perfect fit. The ability to qualify even international tenants, combined with high approval rates and a frictionless and quick user journey were the main drivers of the decision - the quick turnaround time to get live was an added bonus.
Quick turn around times in any application assessment has been a core driver for a better customer experience for a while.
Within only a few months the Living by Scape building in Guildford was fully leased up, with happy tenants that experienced a seamless user journey, as well as staff that were able to raise checks within a minute and receive automatic emails with the outcome of the check in an easy to digest risk report.
Caitlin Mallin, Sales and Community Executive at Living by Scape, explains: "Homeppl were integral to making the opening and initial lease-up period of our new building a success. Efficiency and simplicity were important to both us and our tenants, and Homeppl could deliver that perfectly. Their live chat function is fantastic and their team are so quick to respond. It gave us excellent peace of mind to know we were receiving the highest quality tenant checks - and all for a great value. I would 100% recommend Homeppl if you want prompt but high-quality financial qualification checks."
