Large Fund Manager Success Story: EfTEN Living

EfTEN Living is the residential property arm of the largest real estate fund in the Baltics, EfTEN Capital, which recently surpassed €1 billion in assets under management. They use Bidrento’s white-label solution to automate and digitalise their build to rent property portfolio.

We discussed with Annika Ole-Holm from EfTEN Living how the recently launched platform provides a foundation for innovative rental property management on three different levels:

• A white-label tenant app with custom branding and design, designed by Bidrento.
• A management app and portal, with advanced functionality for an institutional investor.
• Custom integrations with smart devices, ranging from locks to lifts to parking barriers.

A Bespoke Tenant App

Bidrento designed and built a bespoke white-label tenant app, combining the brand of EfTEN Living with Bidrento’s leading-edge user experience and innovative functionality.

“One important part for us was that we wanted to have an outstanding solution for our tenants. This was also the reason why we choose Bidrento as now we can provide quite an innovative solution for our tenants.”

Annika Ole-Holm, Eften Living

During the pandemic, people have embraced a digital-first lifestyle of working from home, finding new ways of entertaining themselves and even training (with solutions like Peloton). Expectations have shifted, and a tenant app has gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have.

Tenant experience is one of the main benefits an institutional investor can have over other landlords as automation adds to tenants’ comfort and satisfaction (which property managers can measure). Facilitating extended average tenancy periods and longer stays benefit both tenants and landlords. Tenants no longer have to worry about jumping around different places, and they can feel at home. Landlords get a more predictable cash-flow stream that supports faster growth.

See our video below: a white-label tenant app with custom branding and design, built and designed by Bidrento

Advanced functionality for property management

One of the most positive surprises and magical moments with Bidrento is how well the tenant experience ties into the daily work of property managers. The management team at EfTEN Living has access to rental agreements automation, maintenance requests and invoicing automation solutions that an institutional investor needs every day right at their fingertips.
 
Bidrento enables EfTEN to grow faster and put all their skills and experience to full use. A lighter management load is one vital component for institutional investors to scale quickly. 

“Bidrento was a great decision when we were looking at Property Management Software for our fast-growing build-to-rent portfolio. We needed something advanced with different functionalities and at the same time which will be user friendly and easy to use.”

Annika Ole-Holm, Eften Living

Additionally, digitalisation helps to keep both rental prices and yield on cost reasonable. Reduced running overhead and management costs thanks to automation are admirable in themselves. However, they help the institutional landlord offer competitive pricing in good locations with good views while reaching their internal targets and KPIs such as Yield on Cost.

Integrations for both tenants and property managers

Thanks to custom integrations, tenants can see their metric readings in real-time, access documents, lock and unlock doors, order extra services and even see footage of security cameras all from one place. Helping to build long-term tenant satisfaction as if on auto-pilot and auto-magically every day in a way that scales from building to building and with each new market that EfTEN Living will enter.

For the management team, integrations with accounting software, other key partners as well as the EfTEN Living website means less manual work.

“Bidrento integrated different parties, so everything is now in one place. Also, their team and developers listen to their customers’ needs and respond very quickly. They even took care of all communication between different parties while making all needed integrations.”

Annika Ole-Holm, Eften Living.

Besides increased productivity and cost reductions, integrations can have a surprisingly positive impact across the business. For example, cheaper customer acquisition costs thanks to integrating Bidrento with a public website  Tenants can send their application request online straight to the system. This reduces advertising costs and the need for brokers as partners.

Scaling a Succesful Partnership

Residential rental property as an asset class is increasingly attractive across the globe. Similarly, EfTEN Capital saw a lot of opportunity within their home markets in the Baltics. As Annika Ole-Holm says:

“For the past 12 years, we have mostly focused on commercial property with seven different funds. In our key markets, the residential rental property is at an early stage compared to more mature markets, say in Scandinavia. Therefore, there is a lot of room for development, and we thought, why not take it on as a challenge. With our first property launched in Tallinn and construction starting in Kaunas with an extra €10 million investment, our overall goal is to build around 1,500 apartments across the Baltics.”

Partnering with Bidrento allows EfTEN Living to grow faster and lower overhead costs.

“I do not doubt that we will continue to use Bidrento in the future. It is an essential system in our business thanks to which we are also able to grow even faster.”

Annika Ole-Holm, Eften Living