The problem
What slows you down, and what we change
Today
- Assembling a rental application (up to 18 documents) takes hours and drives away the best applications.
- Leases drag in paper back-and-forth, sometimes two weeks.
- Chasing rents and missing documents mobilizes the assistant every week.
With Buildoto
- Documents are collected and verified automatically, with follow-ups for the missing ones.
- Lease generated then signed online within 48 h, with an evidence file.
- Follow-ups go out on their own, humans only keep the sensitive cases.
In brief
- Automating a real estate agency means three concrete projects: assembling rental applications (collecting documents, follow-ups, verification), generating documents (lease, mandate, condition report) followed by their electronic signature, and management (rent follow-ups, renewal tracking).
- A complete rental application is often 10 to 18 documents to gather between the applicant and their guarantor, with several follow-ups for each missing document.
- A lease or mandate signed electronically (eIDAS compliant) closes in 24 to 48 h, versus one to two weeks of back-and-forth on paper or scanned PDF.
- Budget-wise: a simple automation starts at €440 excl. tax and the integrated electronic signature building block at €880 excl. tax, base already built, customization at a fixed price.
- Honest limit: the viewing, the valuation and the negotiation remain human. We automate the file, not the job.
The problem, concretely
I know this territory from the inside: BeForBuild.com, my B2B SaaS, is a property management software in production, with document generation, electronic signature and OCR of supporting documents. What I describe here isn't theory, it's what I designed and delivered single-handedly, and what I see at the agencies I talk to.
Take a typical rental. The list of documents a landlord may request is set by decree: an ID document, proof of address, proof of activity and income (pay slips, tax notices...). Count 5 to 9 documents per applicant, and the same for the guarantor: a complete file quickly runs between 10 and 18 documents. In real life, they arrive as badly named attachments, blurry photos, in three separate emails. Someone at the agency has to open them one by one, check nothing is missing, follow up, re-file. On a property attracting 5 or 10 applications, this work multiplies.
On the signature side, same friction. A residential lease with its annexes (including the technical diagnostic file) easily exceeds 30 pages. On paper or scanned PDF, each signatory (tenants, guarantors, landlord) prints, initials, scans, sends back. With two tenants and a guarantor, I've seen leases take two weeks to come back complete, and sales mandates lost because the seller had time to change their mind between two follow-ups.
None of these tasks requires human judgment. All of them consume it.
Project 1: the rental application that assembles almost by itself
The manual process looks like this: the applicant sends what they think is a file, the assistant opens each document, notes what's missing, writes a follow-up email, waits, starts again. Three to four round trips per file aren't rare, spread over a week.
The automated version: the applicant receives an upload link that lists precisely the expected documents according to their situation (employee, self-employed, student with guarantor). At each upload, an automation agent reads the document with OCR: it checks that the document matches what was requested (a tax notice isn't a rent receipt), extracts the useful information (name, income, dates) and marks the box as filled. If a document is missing or unreadable, the follow-up goes out on its own, with the exact list of what still needs to be provided. The agency only sees complete files, already filed, with a summary sheet.
The gain isn't only time: it's also fewer applicants dropping out along the way, because the journey is clear and follow-ups are immediate. It's exactly the OCR and completeness mechanism I built for BeForBuild, adapted to the vocabulary of rentals.
Project 2: lease, mandate, condition report: generated then signed online
Second pool of savings: document production. A lease, a mandate or a condition report is 90% the same paragraphs from one file to the next. Only the names, addresses, amounts and dates change. Re-entering them by hand in a Word template is slow and is the first source of errors (a wrongly copied rent, a misspelled name, a forgotten annex).
Automated, the document is generated from the property record and the client record: zero re-entry, annexes attached systematically, including the technical diagnostic file required at lease signature. Then it goes to electronic signature: each signatory receives a link, signs from their phone, automatic follow-ups take care of the latecomers, and the agency sees in real time who signed and who's blocking.
On legal validity: the European eIDAS regulation recognizes electronic signatures and defines three levels (simple, advanced, qualified). For an agency's common documents (mandates, residential leases, condition reports), the advanced level is generally appropriate; I detail the nuances in this article on eIDAS explained simply. Typical result: a complete lease signed in 24 to 48 h instead of one to two weeks, and a mandate signed the very evening of the valuation.
Project 3: management, follow-ups and renewals without thinking about it
Third project, less visible but recurring: everything that repeats every month. Follow-up of an unpaid rent at D+5 then D+15, with a tone that adapts (courteous reminder, then a formal notice prepared for human validation). Deadline tracking: leases coming up for renewal, home insurance to request each year, diagnostics expiring. An agent that watches these dates and prepares the letters prevents the gaps you only discover at the moment of a dispute.
A realistic example: the Berthelot agency
Fictional but realistic case, assembled from situations I've encountered. The Berthelot agency, 3 people (a manager, a negotiator, a management assistant), about 180 units under rental management plus a sales business. According to the manager, the assistant spent half her time on rental applications and follow-ups: roughly 2 days a week.
Implementation in two stages: first the upload portal with OCR completeness checks and automatic follow-ups, then lease + condition report generation with electronic signature. Three months later: files arrive complete in 8 cases out of 10 with no intervention, the average time between "application accepted" and "lease signed" went from about 10 days to 3, and the assistant estimates she gets back one to one and a half days a week, reinvested in the landlord relationship. At 30 € of loaded hourly cost, one day a week represents on the order of 900 € per month of reallocated time. No layoffs, no software replaced: the building blocks connected to what existed.
How much it costs (and what it brings back)
Market benchmarks, plainly: property software generally bills between 100 and 400 € per month per agency, but rarely covers intelligent document collection or custom signature flows. SaaS electronic signature platforms cost 10 to 60 € per user per month, or 0.50 to 2 € per signature via API. Fully custom development by a web agency quickly runs between 15,000 and 40,000 €.
My approach sits in between: I don't start from scratch, I adapt building blocks already in production on BeForBuild. Concretely: a simple automation (a workflow like file collection or follow-ups) from €440 excl. tax, electronic signature integrated into your documents from €880 excl. tax. Customization to your agency (your templates, your rules, your existing software) is priced at a fixed rate, signed before we start.
The return calculation is simple and deliberately conservative: if the automation gives back one day a week to one person on your team, about 900 € per month of loaded time, a building block at €440 excl. tax is paid back in two months. And I'm not counting mandates signed faster, nor the re-entry errors avoided.
Where to start
- A free 30-minute audit. We review your typical week and identify the item that costs the most time. Often, the verdict surprises: it's not always where you think.
- A single, measurable project. We automate one flow end to end (for example rental applications), with a before/after indicator: completeness time, signature time, hours spent.
- Extend only if it pays. Once the first project is profitable, we add the next building block (signature, then management). Never the reverse.
And to be complete on what doesn't automate: the viewing, the fine valuation of a property, the negotiation between seller and buyer. That's your job, that's where you make the difference, and it's precisely why the paperwork that's suffocating it must be freed up.
Sources
Method
Audit → Build → Production
- 01
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- 02
Fixed-price quote
Scope priced on portable building blocks: feature to deploy or subscription replacement. Price and scope signed within 48 h.
- 03
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I build it, deploy it in your environment and document it. You own the code and keep control of your data.
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