Year in Review: 4 Rental Property Management Questions to Ask

The new year is an ideal time to examine your business, celebrate achievements and determine key areas to tackle in the year ahead. A great place to start is by reflecting on your rental property management business practices over the past year.

Here are four questions to ask yourself about 2016 as you establish goals for the new year.

1. How organized were you?

Organization is key to business success. If you ended the year feeling like you weren't quite on top of things, consider adding a new tool or two to the mix to help you get organized.

Although the idea of getting organized can seem daunting, establishing a series of small, manageable goals makes the process more doable. For instance, you may start by implementing a documentation system to better organize your data. Staying will save you considerable time in the long run, and can help you uncover important insights about your business.

2. How were move ins and move outs handled?

Bringing in new tenants requires many important steps. With property management software, you can automate your tenant application and screening process and ensure that you easily move through each step with due diligence. You can also streamline move ins and move outs and automate lease renewals.

With the right tools, you can easily organize your lease agreements, get notified of important dates and stay on top of tasks associated with moving tenants in and out of units.

3. Was maintenance effective?

How do you manage property inspections and coordinate maintenance schedules for all of your properties? Property management software can be used to manage your maintenance planning so that you can seamlessly integrate new properties into your schedule.

Scheduling regular property maintenance is an essential part of rental property management, but often gets deprioritized as property managers deal with more urgent issues. Use software to maintain a list of preferred vendors and set up a maintenance schedule for the year and for each month, helping you manage problems before they become emergencies.

4. Did you communicate well?

Do you want to become a better communicator this year? A tenant portal allows you to share information with tenants 24/7 through powerful self-service tools. They can view FAQs, check their payment history, and ask questions even when you are out of the office.

With owner portals, you can provide secure, instant access to investment property performance. Owners can easily communicate with management staff when they have questions, and conversations are automatically stored for future reference.

“Our owners love the owner portals. Our tenants love the tenant portals…. with Propertyware, you can go in, do a direct deposit, create the owner statement, and publish it to their portal, or email it to them.”

-Michele Fox, Fox Rental Management

Growing your business in 2017

As you work toward your 2017 goals, we're here to support your rental property management business. Our software allows you to manage the details well, freeing up time for you to focus on business development and growth. Interested in growing your business in 2017? Take a free online tour of Propertyware today.