How Bayleys revolutionized property management with Lumin Sign

For over five decades, Bayleys has been a cornerstone of New Zealand's real estate industry. Its services encompass buying, selling, developing, and property management across the country’s key sectors: residential, commercial, and rural.

Real estate is an industry known for its tradition, but Bayleys has shown it doesn’t have to be old-fashioned.

Bayleys’ property management team looks after almost 12,000 properties nationwide, with around 140 property managers serving roughly 7,000 clients from Northland to Invercargill. Until recently, much of this work relied on pen and paper. Now, they’ve made the leap into digital workflows.

Will Alexander, Bayleys’ Director of Property Management, is an advocate for modern solutions and the driving force behind the team’s adoption of digital signature tools like Lumin Sign.

Infrastructure comes first

Bayleys’ commitment to modern technology is evident in their infrastructure. "Bayleys is 100 percent cloud-based," says Alexander. "Everything is online and backed up. It's modern architecture."

This cloud-first approach positioned Bayleys to easily integrate new digital solutions to address operational challenges, particularly client onboarding.

The challenge: Streamlining client agreements

First impressions matter, especially in property management. Yet the traditional process of agreements was anything but impressive. "Historically, people would email the agreement, they would print it off, they would sign it, then they would scan it back in or even take photos of it with their phone," Alexander explains.

"You're trying to put your best foot forward and that’s just not a good experience in 2024."

Digital signatures transform the experience

After exploring various solutions, Bayleys found Lumin Sign. The impact was immediate and significant. "Using Lumin Sign to onboard clients has made a job that can go up to a week happen within an hour," says Alexander. In just one month they might bring on 200 new clients – in Auckland alone. “If you extrapolate that out to a week per client, it's incredibly laborious.”

This challenge was particularly acute when dealing with multiple property owners or trusts, where gathering signatures could significantly delay the onboarding process.

Now that they’re using Lumin Sign, the process has become much more simple. “Everyone signs it in order, you get updates with the progress, and within an hour it can be back with multiple signatures."

Alexander doesn’t understand why more property managers aren’t using tools like Lumin Sign, which make contract processes exponentially faster. “I don't know why you still expect to print stuff off and get it signed and get this wonky document scanned back to you. That just looks awful.”

“It's a simple solution.”

Adoption made easy

One of the key success factors in Bayleys' digital transformation has been picking tools that are easy to use.

"I'm firmly of the opinion that if technology comes out and it needs a manual then it's no good,” says Alexander. Long gone are the days when new tech meant needing a computer science degree. Accessibility is now a must-have for any digital tool.

And Bayleys’ staff – who range from people in their early twenties through to their seventies – picked up Lumin Sign quickly. “Within a couple of times of processing an agreement and sending that out to clients, they were comfortable,” says Alexander.

Supporting human connections

Bayleys’ property management team hasn't lost sight of its core mission. "It's not all about money, dollars and cents," Alexander says. "It's also about providing a house for someone that desperately needs it.”

“We support people to achieve their wealth goals, and we find homes for people. That's probably the most rewarding part."

By streamlining laborious signing processes through tools like Lumin Sign, Bayleys' property managers can focus more on meaningful connections – proving that digital transformation, when done right, makes work more human; not more clinical.