Over that time, the team have seen enormous changes to the rental market, including the rise of new PropTech services, a changing regulatory environment and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, during which they used PayProp
and other digital platforms to adapt seamlessly to remote work.
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They have also experienced the evolution of the PayProp platform first-hand, witnessing the launch of popular features such as the Tenant Assessment Report, integrated Letters of Demand and the PayProp Owner app.
Today they use PayProp to process rents on over 900 properties in and around Cape Town, most of them fully managed. So why does this successful franchise choose PayProp, and what has their experience been like over the last decade?
A short search for solutions
When the Cape Metro Classic team were looking for solutions in 2012, there was only one clear winner: market leader PayProp. And as the team tell it, doing it manually was no longer an option.
“When I started at the end of 2012, John and myself were doing manual invoices and statements on Excel which was – to put it politely – a nightmare,” says Andrew Pike, Director. In fact, John Birkett, his co-Director, had planned on making payment automation part of the business even before they launched their rental arm.
“I was very much inspired to start rentals because of PayProp. I had heard about it from Robyn [Birkett, now a Director at Cape Metro Classic], who had been using it at Rawson Observatory since they started their rental book. So it wasn’t a case of discovering PayProp after we started.” Andrew Pike, Director
John and Andrew signed up with PayProp in December 2012, and since then they have seen various competitors emerge claiming to offer the same speed, security and transparency.
“We’ve always told them ‘Look, we’ll give it a test, but we need to see proof’,” says Andrew. “And we’ve always come back to PayProp. No one can honestly match the systems, the simplicity, the security of what PayProp offers.” Andrew Pike, Director
“My approach is ‘equal or better’,” adds Letitia Sullivan, the team’s rental office manager. “I would compare the systems and say ‘No, forget it, we’re not getting what we already have with PayProp’.”
Putting security first
So what exactly makes PayProp so indispensable to Rawson Rentals Cape Metro Classic, setting it apart from every challenger? It depends who you ask, because PayProp’s feature set has something for everyone to help them get more out of work and more out of life.
For Letitia, it’s all about peace of mind. Coming from a banking background she is a stickler for payment security, so PayProp’s best-in-class security features make the difference for her.
“I worked for Absa for 10 years, and when I worked in the UK I also worked for a bank,” she explains. “So security has always been important to me. Coming into this business, at every turn I would ask ‘OK, so where’s the payment security? Where are the audit trails?’
“Having a system in place with all of that was first prize for me. We’ve been approached by other companies wanting our business, but I have not discovered a better system than PayProp. It’s the most robust, all-encompassing system I’ve worked with, and it’s so user-friendly both on the front end and the back end.”
She explains that the platform’s system of user permissions is also very useful. Letitia can regularly audit user permissions to ensure that no one employee can authorise a transaction from beginning to end, and also give new employees access incrementally as they learn to use the platform. Letitia Sullivan, Rental office manager
