Opting for property guardianship presents an excellent opportunity to reduce your monthly housing expenses. However, it’s important to note that properties under guardianship often come unfurnished and guardians are responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the premises. Additionally, many of these properties are shared houses, which means coordinating bills, chores, and maintaining clear communication among housemates.
Luckily, the digital age has brought forth a plethora of innovative apps designed specifically to streamline the process of living in a guardian household. In this blog post, we’ll explore the best apps for property guardians from moving in, maintaining and through to moving on.
Moving In
When it comes to furnishing your new property as a property guardian, it can be overwhelming and costly, especially since most houses are provided unfurnished. Luckily, there is a wide array of excellent apps that can help you acquire free or highly affordable furniture and household items, making the process of furnishing your new home easy, budget-friendly, and sustainable.
These apps thrive on the concept of web communities, with Freecycle and Freegle standing out as major players. These platforms offer free membership and are run by volunteers, serving as local online groups where you can find and give away items. The availability of these groups may vary in different areas, so here are a few more of our favourite recommendations to get you started.
Sharing Bills and Expenses
Many property guardian houses are shared properties, and one of the most crucial aspects of shared living is managing bills and expenses fairly. Splitwise is a fantastic app that simplifies this process. It allows housemates to create and manage a shared expense sheet, keeping track of who owes what and when. The app also sends reminders and notifications, ensuring everyone stays on top of their payments and no one ends up out of pocket.
Household Maintenance
We couldn’t compile a top app guide without including Arthur. Arthur is DEX’s property management portal and tenant app and it is available to all our property guardians. It acts as a one stop shop for reporting and managing property repairs and maintenance issues with the DEX Team. You can also find all your licence agreement information and documentation on the app. You should receive an email inviting you to join when you become a DEX Property Guardian.
Sharing Chores
Keeping a shared living space clean and tidy can sometimes be a source of tension among housemates. There are many apps on the market that can help and one of our favourites is Chorma, an app designed to streamline chore management and encourage accountability. Guardians can create a chore wheel, assign tasks to individuals, set deadlines, and even integrate a rewards system for added motivation.
Another app is Nipto, which introduces gamification to household chores. This app organises chores into games, allowing housemates to compete and earn points throughout the week, this interactive approach can help make an often tedious task slightly more fun.
Moving Out
When the time comes to move out of your property, it’s likely that you’ve amassed numerous items that are no longer of use to you and must be disposed of before returning the property. Remember, what may be considered junk to you could be a valuable find for someone else. You might be pleasantly surprised by what others would be eager to take off your hands instead of incurring removal costs.
Freecycle and Freegle are again the big names, although there are many others on the market, here are a few of our favourites;
- Gumtree – a popular app where people can sell their unwanted belongings for cash as well as giving them away for free.
- Facebook marketplace – If you have the facebook app to can use facebook marketplace to sell or give away unwanted items.
- Trash Nothing – An easy to use and active app that allows you to give unwanted but reusable items to people in your local community
- Olio – A sharing app for local communities where you can give away an array of unwanted items ranging from food to furniture and clothing to books.
If at the end you still have items that need deposing LoveJunk is a waste removal & reuse marketplace providing cheap, safe, eco-friendly removal of bulky waste and junk.
Not found what you are looking for? Get in contact with the Guardian Management Team, they are always happy to help and provide further advice.
