Name: HomeHak
Price range: $

January 9, 2023January 24, 2023

Seven FAQs for letting agents and DIY landlords

We have prepared the most frequently asked questions to help you understand HomeHak and our unique approach for letting agents and DIY landlords.

Keep reading if you want to discover how HomeHak can help you find organised and trustworthy tenants.

1. What is HomeHak for Letting Agents?

HomeHak is a people platform that substantially cuts the time and cost of sourcing organised, trustworthy tenants for letting agents and some DIY landlords.

2. What does HomeHak do for Letting Agents?

HomeHak facilitates a database of organised home seekers in the market. We work with home seekers to prepare them before applying to you for homes.

When you want organised tenants, go to HomeHak Tenant Selector. Filter, sort, and select from the latest home seekers in the market and deal properly with a targeted number of applicants suited to your property.

There is no need to advertise and invite hundreds of applications for every property. Why antagonise thousands of desperate home seekers with property ads when each property only has a few beds? Focus on better-organised people with good-quality applications.

Cut productivity and financial costs of needlessly administering hundreds of emails and phone calls. Better concentrate your resources on servicing existing landlord clients well and winning new business.

Why incur the burden and risk of protecting data for hundreds of applicants instead of dealing properly with the home seekers who ideally suit your property?

3. How does HomeHak help home seekers and tenants?

HomeHak helps home seekers to organise, store and promote their home-related information so they can present their case for a home professionally.

Home seekers can apply for a home with one great HomeHak Tenant CV instead of repeatedly sharing sensitive information over insecure emails in formats that do not help their profile look good. Importantly, they have greater control over their information. We also help home seekers to demonstrate their trustworthiness with tools to verify their identity and collect character references.

Seven-FAQs-for-Letting-Agents-and-DIY-landlords — Photo by Ilyuza Mingazova o Unsplash

4. How much does HomeHak cost for letting agents and DIY landlords?

Join and use HomeHak for FREE (without having to include your credit card details) as a letting agent for six months and a DIY landlord for one month. After this free trial period, there is a fee of €25 per agent/member – for the year. It is FREE to advertise a property for rent on HomeHak.

5. How does HomeHak earn income?

HomeHak is a people platform focused on providing value to home seekers, as well as letting agents, DIY landlords and homeowners who want to let a room.

Home seekers benefit from many features for free during the free trial period. Afterwards, home seekers get some features for free and can pay for additional features they find valuable. Membership is currently €25 per annum for someone employed. Students pay nothing for their first year and get discounted membership afterwards (currently €10/60% off). Anyone “retired” or “between jobs” pays nothing.

6. What are differences between HomeHak and property websites?

Price

Property websites make income from letting agents and DIY landlords advertising properties for a fee. In addition, they use properties as click bait and earn income from advertisers featured on the property pages. After a free trial, HomeHak earns a subscription from some home seekers, letting agents, DIY landlords and homeowners who rent a spare room. Advertising a property is FREE.

Focus

Property websites focus on advertising and property. However, HomeHak focuses on meeting the needs of people who:

Need to get selected to rent a home that meets their needs and want to protect their personal and home-related data.
Want to provide top quality professional letting agency services.
Are DIY landlords and homeowners who want to carefully select the most trustworthy ideal tenant/housemate/lodger and avoid overwhelming administration and GDPR risk.

Quality over quantity

Property websites, as advertising websites, strain to reach a high quantity of views of property advertisements and generate a high amount of enquiries for advertisers. HomeHak focuses on quality. We help letting agents and DIY landlords determine which home seekers’ needs are best met by their property and who would make the best tenant. They can then do a good professional job with a smaller number of the more organised applicants and save the cost of needless admin involving hundreds of unsuccessful applicants.

7. How can you get started with HomeHak?

If you want to receive HomeHak Tenant CVs as applications, just include this phrase in your property ads: “We welcome Tenant CVs from HomeHak.com as applications for this property”

Contact us for a demo if you also want instant access to trustworthy tenants. Support an alternative to the dominant property websites and save time and money.

December 6, 2022March 14, 2023

Newsletter for Letting Agents (6th December, 2022)

In this newsletter*…

Newsflash: accommodation is needed for medical professionals in Cork
Meet three doctors, a nurse and a consultant who seek accommodation in Cork, today.
You can help. It is easier than ever to prioritise medical professionals for accommodation
See how property professionals can help in a practical way
Who else is searching for rental homes in Cork?
Sharing is caring. If you do nothing else, please share this newsletter with property professionals.

*The data in this newsletter was correct on 6th December, 2022

1. Doctors and nurses in Cork urgently need accommodation.

Change is urgently needed. A study from Cork University Hospital and Cork University Business School claims that the country’s health system would “collapse” without overseas doctors.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO), these essential workers are often being asked to share bedrooms or, in at least one instance, beds with strangers.

You have probably seen the recruiter ads on LinkedIn inviting doctors and nurses to apply for medical roles in Cork.

International health professionals play a vital role in the provision of healthcare to the citizens of Cork. Many travel thousands of kilometres to work on the frontline in Cork.

It’s hard to source and recruit medical staff. Unfortunately, though, many cannot find accommodation after they relocate to Cork and they are leaving our city as a result.

This home seeker successfully found a home with HomeHak:

2. Meet doctors and nurses who need a home in Cork, as of December 6th, that you can help:

If a Preview Tenant CV doesn’t load, it maybe the home seeker has been offered a home. Also, to review a members Full Tenant CV you must be a registered member of HomeHak – as it may contain sensitive information the owner wants to protect.

Sarra
Sarra is a frontline doctor in the Cardiology clinic at CUH. She has worked in three hospitals in Munster over the past few years. Sarra has been hosted temporarily by her friend for the past six weeks. She is offering between €1,000 and €1,500 for a one-bedroom apartment. This is the Preview CV for Sarra.

Katherine
Kate is a Doctor joining CUH in January 2023. She is an experienced renter and needs accommodation for herself and her partner Kieran, a school teacher in Cork. Kate is organised and presents her rental history, employment details and ID verified in her Tenant CV. Her rent target is €1,200 – €1,300 p.m. See Katherine’s Preview HomeHak Tenant CV here.

Hilal
Hilal is a Physician newly arrived in Cork, ready to start work on 1st January 2023. He needs a home for himself, his partner and two kids. He has sponsorship from his home government and is willing to spend up to €2,400 per month renting accommodation in Cork. Check out Hilal’s Preview Tenant CV.

Nithin and Sherin
Nithin is working as a nurse at CUH since May 2021. He is looking for a home with his wife Sherin and their two children for up to €2,000 per month. Nithin and Sherin have both created a Tenant CVs, including landlord references and ID verification. View their details here.

Fulvio
Fulvio is a Consultant Psychiatrist who will begin work in Cork in March 2023. Clearly an organised person, he is searching in plenty time for a home with at least two bedrooms for his partner and himself. Fulvio’s Tenant CV contains rental history, employment details, and his ID is verified by stripe. His budget stretches to €1,900 p.m. Review Fulvio’s Preview Tenant CV.

3. Help our frontline medical professionals in Cork

It is now much simpler for you to help our hospitals accommodate their frontline medical staff.

Uniquely, on HomeHak, you can see the Tenant CVs of the staff in our hospitals currently searching for homes to rent in Cork:

In conjunction with Cork University Hospital, we have created a page that lists CUH medical professionals who are searching today for homes to rent in Cork.
On tenants.homehak.com, in the search box, enter words like/including “Nurse OR Doctor OR CUH OR Mercy OR Bon Secours OR Mater OR Hospital” (If you enter more than one search term use capital letters for the word “OR”).
If you enter all these words, today (6th December) you will see 49 medical professionals who need homes, even if you are not logged into HomeHak. Click here to review their Preview Tenant CVs.
If you are a registered member of HomeHak, you can review 106 Preview Tenant CVs for medical professionals today with this search.

Until now, if you wanted to help and prioritise medical professionals, you would have to filter through hundreds of applications to find the frontline medical staff.

Even then, there was no guarantee your property would suit the applicant. Maybe the commute wouldn’t work, the rent was too high, or the amenities didn’t match their needs.

From now on, with HomeHak it couldn’t be simpler to prioritise key staff for rental homes.

4. Property professionals, here is how you can help:

If you’d like to prioritise doctors, nurses and medical practitioners for your properties, follow these steps:

Cork University Hospital is the first institution to create a page on HomeHak to help their employees find accommodation in Cork.

If you have a property available close to or on the bus route to Cork University Hospital, you can narrow your search even more and consider CUH staff:

5. Who else is currently searching on HomeHak.com?

Besides medical professionals, here is a list of home seekers that have created a good HomeHak Tenant CV during the last 12 weeks.

Are you looking for an organised tenant with credentials pre-prepared?

**Results if you are registered* on HomeHak**

With ID Verified: 297
With References: 91
With Rental History: 264
Healthcare professionals: 56
Students: 14
Rent Affordability up to €1,500: 249
Rent Affordability up to €2,000: 88
Rent Affordability up to €2,500: 28

**Results if you must register* on HomeHak**

With ID Verified: 266
With References: 83
With Rental History: 241
Healthcare professionals: 55
Students: 12
Rent Affordability up to €1,500: 219
Rent Affordability up to €2,000: 73
Rent Affordability up to €2,500: 22

*Log in to your HomeHak account to have access to a bigger pool of trustworthy tenants with credentials pre-prepared.

6. Sharing is caring

If you do nothing else – please share this newsletter with your colleagues or anyone who might be able to offer accommodation to medical professionals in Cork.

We want to hear from you!

Finally, if you want to help, but you’re not sure how to get started, please get in touch. Reply to this email and we’ll contact you.

Also, let us know what you think about HomeHak’s mission to support healthcare workers in finding a home in Cork?

If you would like to be involved in this campaign or HomeHak’s people approach to home renting, let us know. We would love to hear your feedback and thoughts!

October 26, 2022January 24, 2023

6 Reasons Why Letting Agents Should Sign Up To HomeHak

What makes us different

HomeHak is different from property websites. Our mission is to help letting agents and landlords select tenants they can trust and help people to rent a home they love..

With so much demand for properties and many people looking for homes to rent, a property ad can result in hundreds of enquiries. Sometimes, an agent spend hours sifting through applications, phone calls and emails from anxious applicants desperate to get a home.

HomeHak helps you spend less time reviewing inconsistent, incomplete email enquiries from property website ads and more time engaging landlords and growing your business.

Check out the 6 reasons why letting agents should sign up to HomeHak:

1. Save time and hassle

Enquiries come in all forms from different sources. This includes property websites, emails, referrals and even on paper, with accompanying data protection responsibilities. In addition to being time consuming and stressful, there is no way of knowing before property viewings are arranged, which tenant is trustworthy or if they will be a good fit for the property.

Despite the best of intentions, agents do not have time to assess every applicant’s case to find the best tenants for each individual property. Often, they will select from the first ten or twenty enquiries or the applicants who pester the letting agent the most. What’s more, these persistent applicants may well be the more high-maintenance tenants who will continue calling even after renting the property.

In summary, HomeHak Tenant Selector, helps agents spend less time reviewing inconsistent, incomplete email enquiries from property website ads. Instead, spend that time engaging with trustworthy, organised tenants.

Laptop-and-notes — Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

2. Prioritise prepared and trustworthy applicants

What would it mean for you to stop wasting time and money on the wrong applicants and the “tyre kickers”? What if you and your team knew exactly which applicants prioritise for each property?

HomeHak for agents shows you which applicants are the best fit for a property. Focus your time and efforts on the potential tenants who have their full Tenant CV prepared in advance, with ID verification, references, rent history and more.

Save more time by updating your Landlord clients with a link to the Tenant CV’s you recommend, a task that takes seconds.

3. Information ready to go

HomeHak tenant members are more organised than the average applicant. They have most, or all their relevant information organised and ready to share.

This includes:

ID verified by Stripe
Renting history
Employment details
Landlord, employer and other references
Their story
Details about what they are looking for and how much they can afford.

This information will help you make an informed decision about who to invite for a property viewing, rather than wasting time with unmatched applicants. Besides, it makes so much sense to read a person’s references in advance. It’s the best assurance you can get.

4. No more crowds at viewings

Since all the information you need is on their tenant CV’s, you can just invite the two or three applicants that best suit the house. Avoid the disappointment of dozen unsuccessful applicants and time consuming queues of viewers.

Queue — Photo by Mark Timberlake on Unsplash

5. Easy to find ready-made households

Unique to HomeHak is that individual home seekers can join their Tenant CVs to form ready-made households. Imagine knowing up front that all information for four housemates is organised and ready to view.

In addition, since the home-seekers know each other, they probably have good chemistry and are likely to get on well in the home. It will likely mean less hassle and easier property management. Check out Hanna and her co-applicants Tenant CVs.

Do you want more information about the co-applicant feature? Take a look at this article to learn more about the best way to find a ready-made household.

6. Data Protection

Additionally, HomeHak assists you in lowering the risks associated with assuming the role of Data Controller as per GDPR.

Secondly, the tenants’ data is securely stored on the platform in their own HomeHak account. Letting agents can mitigate some GDPR responsibilities that can come with collecting applications.

Agents can simply focus on a manageable number of trustworthy applicants who meet the expectations of the landlord client.

Why sign up to HomeHak for letting agents?

To sum up, these is how HomeHak can help agents work more efficiently:

No more time spent fielding phone call enquiries from a surplus of home-seekers. You only engage with the best-suited applicants for the particular property.

No more receiving scores of emails with part-completed application forms and attachments full of GDPR-sensitive information. You only engage with the best-suited applicants for the particular property. HomeHak members control how much of their personal information they share with you.

No more time spent reviewing and filtering application forms and attachments and writing to individual applicants. You can message HomeHak members inside the platform. You only engage with the best-suited applicants for the particular property.

No more emailing and calling individual applicants who were unsuccessful. Updating members who shortlisted or applied for a property is automated on HomeHak.

No more answering emails and phone calls like “Is the property still available?” “Did you get my application form?” “Do I stand a good chance of getting this property?” “I sent you everything. What happened?” You only engage with the best-suited applicants for the particular property.

No more emailing enquirers with blank application forms. HomeHak members upload most of their information to their Tenant CV in advance.

Sign up today

Currently, we offer Letting agents 365 days of trial membership, FOR FREE. If the agency decides to join HomeHak during the free trial period, the current cost is €25 per agent per year.

Finally, letting agents pay nothing to advertise a property on HomeHak. HomeHak members are the organised home-seekers you hope to apply to your property ads!

October 22, 2022March 14, 2023

Newsletter for Letting Agents (22nd of October, 2022)

In this newsletter* you will find:

A video Tenant CV from Jon, a great example of an organised home seeker
Find great, organised tenants in minutes: Some pre-prepared search results.
HomeHak in the news, including an interview on the Neil Prendeville show
An important update on our ID verification policy. No Fake Agents here!
A feature for Letting Agents to improve productivity: Auto update all applicants

*The data in this newsletter was correct on 22nd October, 2022

1. Featured Tenant CV on HomeHak Tenant Selector

During the last 10 weeks alone, more than 300 new tenants have created a good, excellent or top-class Tenant CV on HomeHak.

This is Jonathon*, who has prepared one of the most impressive Tenant CVs we have seen this week! Jon seeks a 2 to 4-bed home for up to €1,700.

*This home seeker was happy to showcase his Tenant CV when he was looking for a home in October 2022.

2. Find great Tenants in minutes.

HomeHak Tenant Selector currently has 870 “Good” or better Tenant CV’s available for selection to registered Letting Agents (340 if you are not registered).

To help you find the most ideal tenants for your properties with the minimum effort, we have created some filters of tenants searching since 8th August 2022:

**Results if you are registered* on HomeHak**

With ID Verified: 320
With References: 125
With Rental History: 253
Healthcare professionals: 32
Students: 26
Rent Affordability up to €1,000: 354
Rent Affordability up to €1,500: 281
Rent Affordability up to €2,000: 117
Rent Affordability up to €2,500: 30

**Results if you must register* on HomeHak**

With ID Verified: 267
With References: 85
With Rental History: 253
Healthcare professionals: 27
Students: 19
Rent Affordability up to €1,000: 300
Rent Affordability up to €1,500: 239
Rent Affordability up to €2,000: 96
Rent Affordability up to €2,500: 24

*Log in to your HomeHak account to have access to a bigger pool of trustworthy tenants with credentials pre-prepared.

3. Cork renting platform in the news!

September was a busy month for HomeHak in the press! We appeared in several national and local newspapers, podcasts and radio stations such as Red FM, NewsTalk and TheCork.ie.

Listen back to this live interview on the Neil Prendeville Show!

4. Verify your identity in just 3 minutes with Stripe

HomeHak distributed guidance from An Garda Síochána to deter the scourge of rental fraud and scams. We are determined to discourage bad actors from the HomeHak platform.

Stripe ID verification will be required for all letting agents on HomeHak from Tuesday 8th of November. It is already a requirement of Landlord and Homeowner members. It is a simple 3-minute process that will help us build trust in the community.

The “ID verified with Stripe” badge will be displayed on your profile, showing you are not a fake agent. It will provide extra peace of mind to home seekers and landlords. Here’s how to be verified:

If you have any questions about this new requirement, please let us know! We’re here to help!

5. Feature of the week for Letting Agents:

Sometimes, agents receive hundreds of applications for a single property. How can they respond to emails and phone calls seeking updates, even after renting the property? What about the dent to the agency’s reputation because it is not possible to update everyone?

Update everybody automatically with two clicks

With HomeHak, the agent can change the status of a property being let and automatically update all the home seekers who shortlisted or applied for that property:

Think about the time that you can save on administration and how you could better utilise it sourcing new landlord clients.

We want to hear from you!

HomeHak will save time and cost for your letting agency while ensuring you deliver a better result for your clients.

What do you think about HomeHak’s features for Letting Agents? They have all been designed to help you make an informed decision while saving hassle, time and money.

If you don’t have an account, contact us to set it up today.

September 21, 2022January 24, 2023

Move-In Day: HomeHaks Top Tips On Ways To Help Your New Tenants

Introduction

The job of building a relationship with a tenant begins the first day you show them around. When a renter is choosing a new place to live, how they feel about a potential landlord can count for a lot. It counts for even more when it comes time for tenants to decide whether to stay or go. And if they’ve kept up their end of the bargain by being clean, quiet, and reliable with their payments, you’ll probably want to make sure to keep them around.

Establish a good relationship on move-in day

One of the best times to establish a good rapport with your tenants is on move-in day. Renters will remember the help you offered on that stressful day, and they know they can count on you in the event of a problem and for any questions they might have.

Moving Day Tips — Photo by ConvertKit on Unsplash

How to help

To come up with ways to welcome incoming tenants, put yourself in their shoes. It’s going to be an exhausting couple of days of unpacking boxes and arranging furniture. What will they need the most during that time that doesn’t involve too much time or effort? Here are a few options for a complete welcome package.

Make sure your tenant is set up for rent payments

This is something you should take care of before move-in day, just to make sure your tenants don’t have too many other arrangements to make. As soon as your tenant has been accepted and paid their deposit, reach out to them to organise if they need to connect their bank account, credit card, or debit card or if it will be cash for quick and easy payments. If they haven’t gotten set up by move-in day, include a friendly reminder in their welcome package outlining how future payments will be made.

Get them familiar with their new neighbourhood

After all, they haven’t just chosen your building – they’ve chosen your part of the city. Your tenant’s welcome package should include a list of nearby banks, grocery stores, post offices, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, haircutters, dry cleaners, petrol stations, childcare and pet care services – anything a tenant might need on a day-to-day basis. With your help, they’ll know where to go in a pinch without spending too much time Googling.

This list can go beyond basic services, too. Talk to some popular local restaurants, bars, shops and entertainment venues about supplying coupons to include in your tenant’s welcome package. This tells your tenant that they can come to you for suggestions about where to go when they have free time.

HomeHaks Top Tips On Ways To Help Your New Tenants — Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Make their first week easy with a few basic supplies

Try and stock your tenant’s kitchen and bathroom with basic necessities. For example: toilet paper, paper towels, all-purpose cleaner, batteries, and light bulbs. This will help your tenants accustom to their new place without having to make a run to the store. They’ll be grateful for your foresight. Check out this article for more information on helping your new tenants on move-in day.

Connect them with their new neighbors

If you rent a single-family home, make sure to tell new tenants a little bit about their new neighbors and even facilitate an introduction if you know them well. Show tenants that you’re not just operating a building – you’re building a community.

Check out this article by HomeHak Best Ways To Be A Great Landlord – HomeHaks Top Recommendations!