Why resident sentiment data is becoming so important across the industry

We’ve been sharing our verified resident data with partner developers and operators for some time now, allowing them to improve buildings and services based on resident sentiment, and to better market their homes using positive feedback. However, since launching our data dashboard HomeViews Pro, we’ve seen entirely new sections of the property industry placing resident feedback at the centre of their operations. Whether investing, planning, designing, building or operating residential buildings, feedback from end users is being heard and acted upon.

Accessing useful resident feedback used to mean costly, time-consuming surveys and interviews. Data was restricted to one specific research period and results were unpredictable.

In light of this, and following requests from across the property industry, HomeViews took the bold step earlier this year to make our unique data set of verified resident reviews available to anyone via a new dashboard. We’ve also sourced additional data following requests to include asking prices and building facilities for all UK BTR communities.

We were able to develop this tool with input from leading brands like Cortland Consult, Knight Frank, CallisonRTKL and Allsop. Seeing how subscribers are using our 38,000-plus reviews has been fascinating for our team, and represents a fresh way of achieving our central mission to be a reviews platform for both consumers and the industry.

Data for design

Post-occupancy surveys reveal crucial insights for architects but involve challenges such as time, expense and unpredictability. Accessing data on older projects and competitor schemes can also be difficult.

Architecture, urban planning, design and creative services provider CallisonRTKL is using HomeViews Pro to underpin the ‘human-centric’ approach that is central to its design process.

“HomeViews Pro gives us swift access to powerful insights and data across the cities we are working in,” explains principal architect John Badman. “It enables us to see what makes residents happy and what they value most, and then to translate that back into our designs.”

Consulting residents

Being able to access the best data is also essential for consultants to provide evidence-based advice to architects and other clients. Whether advising on acquisitions, development planning or building management processes, companies like Cortland Consult now use our data as a crucial research tool.

“Cortland Consult places a high value on accurate, detailed data,” explains Iain Murray, Senior Director BTR Consultancy. “We place a lot of currency in the data we pull from HomeViews – we’re all gazing into the future about what kind of buildings we’re designing for people, how they’re going to live in them, and how much energy we’re going to consume. And all that data just allows us to be more informed about the product we’re creating.”

Residents set KPIs

As well as informing the planning and creation of buildings, award-winning building operators like Allsop Letting & Management are using our resident data to set KPIs, report to investors and make constant improvements to their services.

In a recent webinar, CEO Matt Smith highlighted the value of managing schemes designed by people who “really understand how it’s going to end up operating”. Allsop has also incorporated resident feedback into a number of operational and contractual processes.

“We use HomeViews ratings as the contractual KPI between us and our investors,” says Smith. “We believe HomeViews is the best way to fairly measure our performance against the wider sector and our investors value the unique transparency and insights the platform allows us to share with them about their assets.”

Allsop’s operating teams also benefit from real-time performance metrics and what Smith describes as “tangible KPIs” that can be benchmarked against the company’s portfolio and the entire UK BTR sector.

Data-driven development

For developers, our data can provide the equivalent of a pre-consultation with thousands of existing residents. Andy Portlock, CEO of Hadley Property Group, describes this as offering a “head start” to his team.

“We strive to use the best possible data sources to inform our early planning and development design process,” he says. “HomeViews feeds into our understanding of a local market from the existing resident perspective, as well as the discussions about what needs to be addressed in our future plans.”

Swift access to thousands of resident reviews recently helped Hadley when specifying refuse strategy and service access for a new development.

Following just one day spent studying developments with contrasting approaches to bin stores, Hadley was able to change its initial design and specify the solution with the best feedback from residents on HomeViews.

More new applications

These represent just a few interesting examples so far. Other groups using resident data in new ways include investors – who can now accurately measure resident sentiment around operators, regions, housing types, resident demographics and more. Researchers and agents are also using this tool to add the resident experience angle to industry reports and marketing materials.

Meanwhile, suppliers to the industry are now able to quantify the impact their products and services have on the buildings they have worked on. For example, interior design and management app companies are currently winning new business by proving how effective their solutions are for the end user.

Having only launched this new data dashboard in May, our team is intrigued to see even more new uses for the trove of resident data we’ve been collecting since 2017.