NO … a specialist audio typing service is so much more than that!

An expert audio typist has been trained how to produce fast and accurate documents from dictation, resulting in a flowing movement over the keyboard and foot pedal - compare it to a talented pianist; fingers flowing smoothly over the keys and a foot rhythmically working the pedal - to produce documents in the most efficient way.

Not only is good practice required but also the ability to interpret what is being said and including adding correct grammar where appropriate without wasting valuable time stopping and starting.

Then better still are the industry expert audio typists.  These typists know and, more importantly, understand what you are saying - not just taking a stab in the dark.

And even better for all property professionals are property industry expert audio typists!  These typists know what dilapidations are and why they are done.  These typists know all about arbitrations and the formal layout required.  These typists can correctly hear and spell building terminology.

So we disagree, it is not just a bit of a typing.  A great audio typist just makes it look easy!

Here's another reason to use the services of an experienced audio typist - We Tried Speech to Text - Backup Typing

BackupTyping has a team of property industry expert audio typists ready to get your documents typed and with our clients when you need them.  We work to your timescale, not you to ours.  From 2 hours to 24 hours – what do YOU need?

Simple, easy, cost effective solution – let us make your working life easy.

Do you know your 'cornicing' from your 'corner sink'?  Speech to Text AI doesn’t

As a transcription company, we always keep an eye on what is happening in the AI world and alternatives to straightforward typing – our robot competitors!  So we tried some speech to text options ourselves.

And many chuckles were had.

The winner was ‘terrorist’ instead of ‘terraced’.

'Outstanding' instead of 'damp staining' and 'tenure' became '10 year'.

But there were also the likes of 'carriages' instead of 'garages', 'artic' instead of 'Artex' - speech to text just doesn’t understand the context in the way an experienced property audio typist will.

Say 'full stop paragraph' you will see the words 'full stop paragraph' - no experienced human audio typist will do that!

One service missed out not only the odd word here and there but also nearly whole paragraphs.

Some are better than others, this is true, and some work well if sitting in a quiet room and your document is on ‘plain paper’ without formatting – no tables, no bold, no heading styles, all those things that make your documents look great.

But even the simplest, most straightforward emails dictated in an office environment still bring up errors.

Speech to Text Conclusion

Our conclusion is a human typist still beats the robots, especially for professionals producing professional looking documents who need to spend their time thinking about what they are dictating and not how they are dictating.

From our research, by the time you have amended the misunderstandings of the 'robot' and formatted your document to look great, any potential time/cost saved by not using an audio typist is lost.

A professional audio typist gets when you are instructing or dictating without you telling them, no formal dictating procedures – just speak clearly, not too fast or too slow (chatting speed) and, to be kind to your audio typist, try to stand out of the wind.

If you are a chartered surveyor and need documents prepared quickly, accurately and professionally so you can get on with your next fee-earning job, the humans at BackupTyping are always on hand.  We speak your language!

BackupTyping is a chartered surveying specialist transcription company working with a variety of clients from large corporations to small niche companies, all receiving the same high quality and fast service from a team of audio typists who worked at senior levels in chartered surveying organisations.  For human contact - Call:  020 7096 1663 or Email: lorna@backuptyping.co.uk

Try us instantly with our FREE dictation app!

Fee Earner or Expensive Typist? 

Would you pay £100 to have a two page letter typed?  Of course not BUT you probably are.  

As a fee earner for your company, typing is the last thing you should be doing.  

Many people will think ‘well it's just a bit of typing’ but it will end up costing you a lot more than your time.  

Imagine a very normal scenario, you have a two page letter to type so approximately 1000 words.  

For a normal ‘pick and peck’ non-typist 1000 words will take approximately 40 minutes just to type and then to read through and correct any errors, add another 20 minutes so that’s 60 minutes.   

However, during the 60 minutes you’ve take 3 phone calls (maybe a lot more).  For the sake of argument let’s say one call is a quick 5 minutes but the other two are longer so perhaps 15 mins each which means during that hour you’ve been interrupted three times.  

And each time when you go back to your letter you need to gather your thoughts again, check where you got to and start again, taking a few minutes each time.  By the time you add all the time up, its probably close to 100 minutes – for a two page letter!  

But – you’ve saved the company money by typing it yourself rather than outsourcing it.  Actually no.  You used 60 minutes of your time doing the actual typing which as a fee earner (for example) is £100 per hour (your hourly charge to a client).  That’s one hour of doing less fee earning work, one hour less looking after your clients' needs.    

What would it cost to outsource to a property audio typing service?

If you dictated those 1000 words at a leisurely dictation speed of 100wpm that takes you 10 minutes to dictate.  Once dictated simply send to a transcription company. You can now focus on fee earning work.       

At BackupTyping we work on a 1:3 ratio ie 10 minutes would take us 30 minutes to type and proof read.  On our ‘same day’ service this would only cost £14.00, a considerable saving in money and in time.  

In a world where saving time and money is paramount it makes sense to outsource. 

BackupTyping provides a fast, accurate and experienced transcription for property professionals - saving you time and money. Call us on 020 7096 1663 to find out how we can help you.

Property audio typing/transcription service to Chartered Surveyors - it's what we know, we speak your language.

Who needs a transcription service?   Especially a property typing specialist

Outsource Typing versus Getting a Temp

What happens when your trusted secretary puts in a request for holiday?  As soon as it is agreed the planning starts and makes the days or weeks before a stressful time (let’s not even mention not being able to ‘switch off’ whilst away, dreading coming back to a mountain of work).

If you can find an audio typing temp who has all the necessary skills you are very lucky but even this has its drawbacks.  Employing a temp means you will be paying for 7 hours a day regardless of whether or not any work is actually carried out.

If you are just handing over typing duties, will you really dictate enough for them to be typing for 7 hours each day?

If, however, you are unable to find a suitable temp and you need to spread the workload around the rest of the team, this adds pressure and can lead to delays with secretaries being overloaded.

Is there a solution that works for everyone?  Absolutely.

Why Outsourcing Typing Works

Outsourcing your audio typing works best when using a market specific transcription company and is the perfect solution for holiday cover as you only pay for work actually carried out.

At BackupTyping we work with all sizes of companies; some clients use our services every day and others need us twice a year for holiday cover.

The team consists of highly experienced chartered surveying audio typists meaning there is no need to explain terminology, no need to train on layouts, all we simply need are the necessary templates and a dictation file (don’t have a dictation machine? No problem, we have you covered with our easy to use dictation app).

Whether its once a day or once a year our team are on hand when needed, let us take the strain out of holiday cover.  BackupTyping are always available when needed – day and night.  Here when you need us, on standby when you don’t.

We are always happy to have a Teams/Zoom meeting if anything needs to be covered in detail but rest assured you will be in a safe pair of hands.

BackupTyping provides fast, accurate and experienced transcription for property professionals - saving you time and money.  Call us on 020 7096 1663 to find out how we can help you.

According to global real estate services provider, Savills, the UK housing value hit a record high of £8.41 trillion in 2021, up 10.6% on 2020.

The UK housing market saw an increase of £804 billion last year, which the estate agent states is the biggest annual increase in value ever recorded. This is the fastest annual percentage growth recorded in the last 15 years and follows a decade of stock value increases which has seen the housing market in the UK rise by over 75.7% (£3.6 trillion).

Continuing trends which have dominated the housing market for some time, London and the South hold 62% of the total value verses only having 44% of all housing stock. Savills findings state: ‘In England, the South East saw the greater increase in housing value in 2021, rising by £155 billion or 10.9%, followed by the North (£131 billion) and London (£130 billion). Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland grew by a combined £98 billion – +12.5%.’

However, following the pandemic and the work from home culture that has arisen, there has been a demand for suburban locations that offer better value for money than urban areas. This has helped to add value to areas such as the South West and Midlands. Cornwall, for example, saw its value rise by £16.2 billion in 2021. It is also one of the top 10 locations for growth over the last 10 years, one of only two districts outside of London to enter the top 10.

Contributing factors that led to this record high increase include the stamp duty holiday and a low interest rate environment, which encouraged people to move that might not have done so otherwise. This is in addition to the pandemic causing a shift in focus for homeowners, Lawrence Bowles, a director in the Savills residential research team explains.

“People’s lifestyle needs and housing preferences hugely shifted over the course of the pandemic, with many reassessing what they want out of their living environment in response to increased working from home and the need for more inside and outside space.”

With records being broken in 2021, it makes you wonder what 2022 will have in-store for the property industry.

The UK government recently published it’s Levelling Up White Paper which sets out its 12 ‘missions’ to level up the UK by 2030.

The White Paper references the government’s commitment to reduce the number of non-decent rented homes, encourage first-time buyers and prioritise affordable social housing.

There is a focus on transforming brownfield sites in the Midlands and the North, devising a plan to abolish ‘no fault’ evictions, and creating a Decent Homes Standard to help tenants living in unacceptable conditions. It also discusses the possible introduction of a landlord register that will help to regulate the sector and give tenants peace of mind.

The RICS have responded with strong support of the White Piper’s focus on regeneration and boosting pride in place as well.

According to its latest news report on the matter, RICS believes that ‘the levelling-up agenda must now be underpinned by a reformed planning system that offers greater certainty, provides for sufficient local accountability and allows for the timely delivery of vital social infrastructure.’

Although it is firmly behind the measures that have been indicated, the RICS says there needs to be further clarity on the government’s intentions. In particular, the government needs to detail how policies related to commercial landlords will work with the government wanting landlords of empty shops and not leave them vacant for long periods.

RICS is keen to help assist the government in any areas that affect the built environment and will provide insight where possible.

With the governments 12 ‘missions’ including a substantial investment into the housing market, there will be a significant increase in the need for property industry professionals to take steps to help it level up.

If you find yourself in need of additional help to deal with the demand of incoming work, outsourcing can help to free up other members of staff in busy periods. Learn more about our services: https://backuptyping.co.uk/property-report-typing-why-us/.

The UK government recently published it’s Levelling Up White Paper which sets out its 12 ‘missions’ to level up the UK by 2030.

The White Paper references the government’s commitment to reduce the number of non-decent rented homes, encourage first-time buyers and prioritise affordable social housing.

There is a focus on transforming brownfield sites in the Midlands and the North, devising a plan to abolish ‘no fault’ evictions, and creating a Decent Homes Standard to help tenants living in unacceptable conditions. It also discusses the possible introduction of a landlord register that will help to regulate the sector and give tenants peace of mind.

The RICS have responded with strong support of the White Piper’s focus on regeneration and boosting pride in place as well.

According to its latest news report on the matter, RICS believes that ‘the levelling-up agenda must now be underpinned by a reformed planning system that offers greater certainty, provides for sufficient local accountability and allows for the timely delivery of vital social infrastructure.’

Although it is firmly behind the measures that have been indicated, the RICS says there needs to be further clarity on the government’s intentions. In particular, the government needs to detail how policies related to commercial landlords will work with the government wanting landlords of empty shops and not leave them vacant for long periods.

RICS is keen to help assist the government in any areas that affect the built environment and will provide insight where possible.

With the governments 12 ‘missions’ including a substantial investment into the housing market, there will be a significant increase in the need for property industry professionals to take steps to help it level up.

If you find yourself in need of additional help to deal with the demand of incoming work, outsourcing can help to free up other members of staff in busy periods. Learn more about our services: https://backuptyping.co.uk/property-report-typing-why-us/.

According to Rightmove, Boxing Day 2021 saw the highest number of properties coming to the market on what is already considered a traditionally busy day, giving hope to the property market in 2022.

While stock remains low and prices continue to increase due to demand, the market is seeing positive changes that will hopefully help it to rebound in 2022, as many industry professionals have predicted will be the case.

Rightmove’s House Price Index for January indicates the surge in the number of buyers enquiring about homes is up 15% year-on-year. Of those enquiring about a property on the marketing, 40% have yet to put their property on the market which would help to bolster the stock available.

Although, waiting is causing many homeowners to lose out to first-timer buyers or homeowners who have already sold their property, also known as ‘power buyers’. ‘Power buyers’ are those who are in a great position, ready to move and often with secured finance making them a more attractive buyer.

The number of home valuation requests in the first week of January is up 44% on January 2021. It is also 48% up on 2020 – showing the market to be in a favourable position when compared to pre-pandemic figures.

Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s Director of Property Data comments: “New Year sellers and buyers have been quick off the mark this year, with Rightmove recording the highest ever number of Boxing Day sellers coming to market.

“These early-bird sellers who got themselves ready to come to market are now benefitting from the busiest start to the year that we’ve ever recorded, with the number of prospective buyers enquiring about homes up 15% on this time last year.

“It’s clear that the trends which defined the market in 2021 have carried over into this year. That being said, we are seeing early signs of a better-balanced market in 2022. The number of requests from would-be sellers to agents to value their home has continued to increase from the end of last year and was at one of its highest points ever on the first working day of this year.”

With the number of valuations on the increase, make sure you are in the best position possible for your business by utilising our services and taking the pressure off of in-house staff.

Find out about our transcription and audio typing services that will be a life line to your business as the property market starts moving again in 2022.

In December the Bank of England announced that the base rate was increasing from 0.10% to 0.25%. It was originally cut in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to help the economy during a period of uncertainty. Up to that point the base rate was 0.75%.

At present, there is no indication of how long the base rate will stay at 0.25% as policymakers at the Bank of England decide on the increases in line with the rate of inflation to help keep price rises under control. However, this will impact some homeowners and they will likely be keen to save money as there have been predictions that the base rate will continue to rise in 2022.

We have been experiencing a period of cheap mortgages and mortgage brokers are predicting that an increase won’t impact mortgages overnight, and some might not even be affected at all.

For example, 74% of mortgages are fixed-rate so the increase will not be noticeable while still in their current term, explains UK Finance. Although, the change will impact their repayments after this period.

Approx. 1.5 million fixed-rate mortgages will be expiring in 2022, and a further 1.5 million in 2023, meaning that there may be a lot of homeowners shopping around for new deals over the course of the next two years.

The remaining 26% who are on tracker mortgages will likely be impacted by change immediately. This may also lead to an increase in enquiries from homeowners on a tracker mortgage as they could look to change lenders when their term ends.

If you are in the property industry and need help with work brought about from the base rate increase, please speak to our team. We are all knowledgeable property industry professionals, familiar with specialist terminology and able to offer fast turnaround.

As in previous years, January looks to see the property market receive an injection of much-needed stock, giving rise to a demand for property industry professionals including estate agents, surveyors and solicitors, and of course, our audio typing and transcription services to support these professionals.

The festive period is often the calm before the storm, as Boxing Day and New Year’s Day are high-traffic days on websites such as Rightmove. Prospective second-steppers and first-time buyers take advantage of being off work to plan big financial decisions for the year ahead.

The holiday season is often a catalyst for the property market as many realise they need a new home as theirs is too small or perhaps not close enough to loved ones. Similarly, first-time buyers come to the realisation they need a place of their own, more space or want to move in with their partner.

According to We Buy Any House, January is statistically the best-selling month of the year in the property industry. This is in part due to having no financial responsibilities, such as holidays, Bank Holidays, events etc – those have all been and gone in December, leaving January clear for other financial outlays.

Having said that, the typical seasonality of the property market could be impacted by the pandemic, meaning that 2022 might not follow patterns of previous years. As the stamp duty holiday ended in September, a lack of stock has driven house prices up, and prices were at an all-time high in October.

Rightmove has stated the market will be closer to normal next year following the last frenzied 18 months. December gave hope of a normal market, with the annual ‘December dip’ seeing house prices drop by £2,234.

Independent estate agent, Easthaus, also believe January is on track to mimic past years and the spring into summer period will continue to dominate when it comes to sales. However, experts at We Buy Any House believe that the pandemic could end the typical popular selling periods.

House prices are predicted to grow by 3% over the course of 2022 with the Property Investor Today predicting that the highest growth will be in the North West and East Midlands. It predicts London will have the weakest growth.

If you are predicting a sudden influx of work in January following the festive period or are concerned by the uncertainty of the property market in 2022, we recommend getting in touch with us. We are able to provide transcription and audio typing services to meet your demand.

Utilise our services to cope with the unpredictability of the industry and take the pressure off your team in 2022.