This year alone, 1,900 new homes are on track to be delivered by Quintain at Wembley Park. With the recent lockdown, our already ambitious leasing targets are now an unprecedented challenge for our team at Quintain Living, the Group’s Build to Rent management brand. The government’s advice to avoid moving home unless necessary has compounded the challenge, but for residents committed to a ‘move out’ date from their current accommodation, Quintain Living’s excellent residents team is facilitating their move in quickly and safely in complete adherence to social distancing rules.
By offering virtual viewings, online contract signings, Wi-Fi connected before arrival together with high quality furnished apartments (with packages as extensive as “down to the teaspoon”), the logistics and concerns around moving whilst adhering to social distancing measures can be hugely alleviated. We are fortunate in our well-developed capability to offer virtual viewings of Quintain Living apartments with an impressive amount of detail, as well as virtual tours around the wider Wembley Park neighbourhood.
Whilst teams across the industry are urgently developing these digital facilities, companies with a reliable digital viewing infrastructure already in place, such as Quintain Living, are already ahead of the curve. However, the benefit to this technology can be greater than simply being able to offer a contactless leasing experience.
We have a number of show apartments that the Quintain Living leasing team typically utilise to illustrate the breadth of product at Wembley Park, with each room ‘dressed’ to help indicate how it could look once occupied, complete with shoes by the door and the essential fully stocked drinks trolley in the corner. The leasing team has been supported by a Google Street View style virtual viewing facility of these select few apartments for a while, shared on Quintain Living's website.
A more recent type of virtual viewing software in our arsenal, however, is one that maps out and photographs each individual apartment in the portfolio, along with 360 degree imaging. It acts as a more comprehensive representation of the space than a basic floorplan would. It’s this technology that has come into its own during this period of lockdown, allowing potential residents to see the very home that they will move into, without needing to visit or meet with a member of the leasing team. Every home is somewhat unique in a way that typical 2D floorplans struggle to illustrate. With this technology, the ‘virtual’ customer experience is transformed with accurate views from the balcony, a good indication of space for furniture and often overlooked information such as where plug sockets and radiators are.
This technology was originally utilised by our construction teams and contractors. By collecting exact specifications of each completed apartment, we can be certain of a product that has been built to the exact brief, strengthening the accuracy and credibility of our portfolio. Storing and analysing this information across the 85-acre development has potential for incredible value to the business. With this in mind, Quintain has a dedicated team responsible for ensuring that technology across the company is aligned and utilised efficiently.
We want to ensure we are building homes where people love to live. Over and above the benefits to the customer experience, it can help us build more sustainably and cost effectively. Whilst building and operating thousands of apartments at one site, it is crucial that as much data as possible is collected throughout the process to establish any areas of improvement in the product. Capturing data about every aspect of each individual apartment allows the Quintain team to recognise and understand any leasing trends quickly, spotting opportunities for improvement in the product. This typically takes time but good technology can help us shorten the feedback loop and make it more efficient.
If, for instance, the Quintain Living team were to look at the data of hundreds of apartments of the same overall size, they might determine that apartments with bigger bathrooms are not necessarily leased any quicker than others. They can then share that knowledge with the construction teams to allow them to consider future design efficiencies. By using a product that can collect and store exact data from all aspects of every apartment, it puts Quintain in a much stronger position when analysing its product performance than if only data from 2D floorplans were to be used in this analysis. The technology allows us to isolate variables that drive good leasing performance. The Quintain Living team will be able to advise Quintain’s architecture and design teams what renters prioritise other than the size of apartment, whether that be a good view of Wembley Stadium from the kitchen or south facing balconies.
Although Quintain’s technology team is in its infancy, it is growing fast with experienced staff dedicated to delivering the strong pipeline of opportunities to channel Wembley Park’s tech capabilities. With a dedicated team to project manage and deliver this offering, it will take Wembley Park closer to the much anticipated ‘Smart City’ accolade, although we remain realistic in terms of what that really means and when we’ll get there and we look forward to sharing more information once we’re in a position to do so.
