Thursday 10th December
wud u like a gr8 nu hse?

Two-thirds of the British population - some 40m people - now use a mobile phone. Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) decided to capitalise on this and has introduced a text message service to help prospective North Nottinghamshire tenants find a home.

After signing up with the NCHA Ollerton office choice based letting scheme (known as LETS), prospective tenants can then register their interest in any properties advertised by that scheme. The text message service allows prospective tenants to simply text the word ’BID’ followed by their registration number, the code for the property they’re interested in and their surname.

The text message will then be received by the LETS team, who will continue to use the text message service to keep applicants updated about the house they have bid for. Using this simple text message system will mean a big reduction in response times, and the paperwork involved in processing bids for new homes.

Maggie Kelly, Allocations Manager at NCHA’s Ollerton office commented,
"It’s a sign of NCHA moving with the times and continually striving to improve our services. More and more people have mobile phones, so it’s great that we can use the technology and make it quicker and easier for people to apply for a new home. We’ve already had a lot of tenants successfully using the service, so we’re hoping to start using it across the Association soon".

The text service is advertised by LETS in their fortnightly adverts in the North Nottinghamshire local press.

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Notes to editor:
1. LETS available properties are advertised fortnightly in the Newark Advertiser, Mansfield Chad and the Worksop and Retford Guardian.

2. Prospective tenants can bid for properties by texting the word "BID" followed by their registration number, property code and surname to 07725 958 172.