UK part buy-part rent housing provider heylo has installed the MRI LivingTM software suite to help manage its portfolio. The deployment of MRI Living allows the company to leverage a flexible set of tools that encompass property management, sales and lettings, and resident portals, as well as MRI’s fixed asset accounting and strategic planning solutions.

heylo, which has more than doubled its portfolio of part-ownership properties since 2019, cited MRI’s open and connected architecture as a key factor behind its decision. The company manages over 7,000 homes across more than 190 local authorities in England. It aims to build strong relationships with its tenants, who tend to be long-term residents of the properties it manages.

“Our customer relationships aren’t short-term – they’re with us potentially for decades – and technology is a big part of managing the relationships successfully,” says Peter Ralph, the property developer’s Chief Operating Officer. “These solutions from MRI will help us perform daily tasks more efficiently and prepare for future trends. The great advantage of MRI is the ability to integrate with the systems our outsourced providers are using. Our sales and lettings agents are already using solutions such as Plentific or FixFlo.”

Part buy-part rent homeowner arrangements – also called shared ownership – enable consumers to purchase a share of a property and pay rent on the remaining share. This type of purchase means potential homeowners require a smaller deposit and mortgage – giving them a more affordable route into homeownership.

Ralph notes: “We offer a step onto the property ladder for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve this, and with property prices continuing to rise, we expect part buy-part rent to become a much more normalised way of getting onto the ladder in the future.”

“The MRI Living solution is able to expand and adapt as heylo’s property portfolio grows,” notes Dan Foryszewski, Investor Solutions Team Manager at MRI Software. “Through MRI’s extensive partner ecosystem, companies like heylo can easily integrate with an array of partner technologies, ensuring they always have access to new applications that benefit the business today and in the future.”