IT Support for Estate Agents

Managed IT and security for estate agents, letting agents and property managers across Cardiff and South Wales.

Estate and letting agents

IT support for property businesses

Alphabyte IT looks after the IT for estate agents, letting agents and property managers across Cardiff and South Wales. For a fixed monthly fee from £40 per user + VAT, we keep your computers, branch networks, phones and Microsoft 365 running, and we put in the security that stops criminals getting into your email, your client money or your tenants’ data.

An agency depends on a few things working every day: the property CRM, the portal leads, a diary that’s right on every negotiator’s phone, and email that buyers, sellers, landlords and solicitors can trust.

We’ve worked with estate agents. When a negotiator rings from the car between viewings, they talk to someone on first-name terms who knows your set-up, not a call centre.

Book a Call See pricing

From £40 per user

Unlimited phone, remote and onsite support for a fixed monthly fee.

Straight-away response

When a problem stops your agency working, we typically pick it up straight away, backed by our SLA.

Branches and mobiles

Every office set up the same way, and work phones we can wipe remotely if one goes missing.

Fraud-resistant email

Multi-factor authentication, phishing filtering and spoofing protection on your domain.

Property software

Your CRM, the portals and everything around them

Most agency software now runs in the cloud, so when it “goes down” the cause is usually at your end: the broadband, a browser update, an expired password, an Outlook add-in that has stopped logging emails, or a scanner that no longer sends ID documents to the right folder. Those are ours to fix.

When the fault really is in the software, or leads have stopped arriving from the portals, we gather the details, log it with your CRM supplier and chase it, so your office manager isn’t stuck on hold. We support the software you already use.

Branches and viewings

Every branch, every negotiator’s phone

With more than one office, we set each branch up the same way: business broadband with a backup connection where losing it would stop the branch, Wi-Fi with guest access kept apart from your systems, and printers and phones that behave the same in every office. Our network and Wi-Fi support and business phone systems pages explain more.

Negotiators and property managers spend much of the day out of the office. Work email and diaries on their phones need a PIN, and if a phone is left behind in a property, we can wipe the work data remotely. On personal phones we protect just the work apps and email, and can remove them when someone leaves without touching their photos.

Payment fraud

Don’t let criminals hijack a sale

Property deals move large sums by bank transfer, which makes them a favourite target for payment diversion fraud, also known as business email compromise. The National Crime Agency has warned that home buyers are targeted because of the size of the payments involved.

A criminal gets into an email account belonging to the agent, the solicitor or the client, or registers a lookalike address, quietly reads the conversation, then sends “updated” bank details just as money is due to move: a holding deposit, a month’s rent, a landlord’s payment or the purchase money itself.

Most of these attacks start with a stolen password or a spoofed sender, so that’s where we start too. Not sure whether your domain is protected against spoofing? Our free security snapshot checks it from public records and gives you a one-page report.

What we put in place

Closing the doors fraudsters use

Multi-factor authentication on every mailbox, and on your CRM and banking wherever they offer it, so a stolen password alone isn’t enough.
Spoofing protection. SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up on your domain. The NCSC recommends all three to stop criminals sending email that appears to come from you. More on email security.
Phishing filtering on incoming email, and staff shown what a fake “document shared with you” message or login page looks like.
One firm rule for your team: never act on new bank details sent by email. Confirm them by phone on a number you already hold, as the NCA and the NCSC both advise.
A warning at the start. Tell clients your bank details won’t change during the transaction, and repeat it in your email signature and on your website.

Anti-money laundering

Five years of ID documents is a target

Estate agency businesses must register with HMRC for anti-money laundering supervision before they trade. Letting agents must register too if they arrange lets of a month or longer at 10,000 euros a month or more. HMRC treats both the buyer and the seller as your customers, so you collect identity documents from both sides.

Customer due diligence records have to be kept for five years from the end of the business relationship or the completion of the transaction. That builds into a store of passports, driving licences and bank statements, exactly what identity fraudsters want. We help you keep it in one controlled place rather than in inboxes and camera rolls, with access limited to the people who need it, daily backups, and deletion once the retention period has passed.

UK GDPR

Tenant and buyer data when things go wrong

Applicants, tenants, landlords, buyers and sellers all trust you with personal data. If a breach is likely to put people at risk, UK GDPR requires you to report it to the ICO without undue delay and within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and to tell the people affected directly if the risk to them is high. You should log every breach, including the ones you don’t report.

Seventy-two hours goes quickly when nobody knows what was in a hacked mailbox. We keep laptops encrypted and sign-ins logged, and if something happens we help you lock the accounts, work out what was exposed and gather the facts for your report.

Cyber Essentials

A certificate clients can check

Cyber Essentials is the government-backed scheme that shows you have the basic protections in place: firewalls, secure settings, controlled access, anti-malware and security updates. It covers every device that touches work data, including negotiators’ own phones if they get work email.

We keep every system we manage to the Cyber Essentials standard, certified or not, so for our clients certification is mostly paperwork. Our Cyber Essentials service starts from £295 + VAT plus the IASME assessment fee, and every business we’ve prepared has passed. If a client or insurer asks for Cyber Essentials Plus, we can prepare you for that too.

Microsoft 365 and AI

Copilot, switched on safely

We license Microsoft Copilot and switch on the Microsoft 365 AI features safely. Copilot can show a user anything they already have permission to open, so we tidy up folder permissions first, so that a new negotiator can’t stumble across last year’s ID scans. More on Microsoft 365 security.

For taking admin off your team’s plate, our sister business AlphaOps covers AI and automation for estate agents.

Questions

IT for estate agents: FAQs

How much does IT support for an estate agency cost?

Our managed IT support starts from £40 per user per month + VAT, covering unlimited support, monitoring, daily backups and security. The exact price depends on your headcount, branches and set-up, so we give you a fixed quote first. Microsoft 365 licences and new hardware are extra. See what’s included.

Do you support our property CRM and the portals?

Yes. We look after the computers, network, email and Microsoft 365 your CRM depends on, and when a fault sits with the software or a portal feed, we deal with the supplier for you.

We have several branches. Can you look after all of them?

Yes. We support businesses across Cardiff and South Wales, fix most problems remotely and come onsite when something needs hands on. Onsite visits are included in the monthly fee.

What should we do if we think an email account has been hacked?

Call us straight away so we can lock the account, sign it out everywhere and check for rules that forward or hide mail. If money may have gone to the wrong account, ring your bank on its official number at once, then report it to Report Fraud, the police reporting service for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Warn anyone who may have had emails from the account, and decide whether the breach needs reporting to the ICO within 72 hours.

Do negotiators’ personal phones count for Cyber Essentials?

Yes, if they’re used for work email or files. A phone used only for calls, texts and sign-in codes is out of scope. We can protect the work apps on a personal phone without managing the whole device.

Is this for letting agents and property managers too?

Yes. Lettings and property management mean regular rent and contractor payments and plenty of tenant data, so the same protections matter, especially a firm process for any change of bank details.

Let’s get you transferred across

It’s a Piece of Cake to Transfer to Us

We handle everything so there is no need to worry about any of the transfer process. We have done it many times before!

Book a Call Get more info

It’s very simple

How To Get Started With Us

We’ve made transferring to us effortless with our Easy Transfer Service. Book your free consultation now to get started!

Book a Call