Grow Your Rental Property Portfolio – Propertyware

How Do Property Managers Get New Owners?

Mary Rose Hogaza — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 20:24:16 +0000

Growing more doors in single family property management requires a game plan. This should include, among other things, the advantages offered by technology and automation. And even some good old fashioned salesmanship. In “Grow Big: Top Tips for Gaining More Owners,” single-family leaders share a dozen ways they bring in new property owner business. Propertyware Vice President Inaas Arabi and Fourandhalf CEO John Bykowski discuss what the plan should look like and share proven ways to grow more doors. Included are actionable tips that cover marketing, listing syndication, networking, establishing and solidifying industry partnerships, acquisitions and more. They are the same methods that have helped grow doors for Propertyware customers like CrestCore Realty, which grew from 400 to 2,500 units in three years, and 3rd Base Realty, which hit the highest occupancy rate in its market. Also, the webcast shares the latest automated options to identify leads that produce qualified clients for property management. Tips include the importance of freeing up staff to make personal connections that automation can’t reach, like face-to-face networking, handshakes and being active in community events. Here are highlights from five of the twelve tips shared in the webcast:

1. Optimize your marketing plan

Operators should have an actionable, unified plan that goes beyond pricey internet search advertising. While this approach can be helpful, it doesn’t always produce quality leads and end once your budget runs out. “Don’t just go out and buy individual products and expect to be able to make that work,” Bykowski says. “Also, don’t rely on Google for all of your marketing needs, whether for SEO or AdWords.” Content marketing can be a cost-effective and lucrative strategy. Adding a blog page to a website provides useful information to potential owners and evergreen content offers value for years and years

2. Focus on company descriptions

Add your company’s description on every listing so prospective owners can become familiar with the organization. Use the last few lines of the listing to tell the company story and showcase what is unique. It’s a low-cost way to promote your services.

3. Ask for referrals from owners, tenants and vendors

Other owners, tenants and vendors are great sources for word-of-mouth advertising. Bykowski says owner referrals are a win-win. Establishing strong working relationships with vendors is also a good way to expand the network. They are likely to refer your company to other owners they do business with, Arabi says. Investors, mortgage brokers and insurance agents can also talk up your property management company. So can the sheriff, Bykowski’s favorite. The Sheriff’s Department deals with evictions all day and can be a good source to provide a plug for professional property management services. You should also add a referral program to your website, and track referrals using custom fields in Propertyware.

4. Showcase your professional management services

At the end of each email, letter or text, add a few lines that highlight what your company has to offer and include a link to your company website. In every communication with anyone doing work for your company – whether an owner, tenant or vendor – add a couple of lines to describe your services. “This is free,” Arabi says. “In every communication, whether to an owner, tenant or vendor, you add a couple of lines to describe your services. Maybe some of it is about your local expertise. Differentiate yourself from others.”

5. Partner with local brokers in your hometown

Connect with local brokers and ask them to send leads on property management services. “At the end of the day, it’s another avenue to allow you to grow your doors,” Arabi says. Kathy Scott with Real Estate BCS in College Station, TX has leveraged this approach with great success. Arabi says getting out of the office and becoming actively involved in the community is a great way to connect with prospects and like-minded people, including brokers who are looking for property management services. “Some of those community events can be industry conventions and conferences, like RealWorld, which allow you to connect with other property managers,” he says.

Focus on conversation, not just lead generation

Arabi stresses that creating leads doesn’t necessarily mean the company is growing. Growth only comes through converting those leads that are a good fit. Make sure that the right staff and the right vendors are in place to maintain follow up with prospective clients and manage your business growth 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. “You want to partner with the right vendors,” he says. “You probably can’t afford to have your own 24/7 call center, so partner with a vendor that does.” This professional approach puts prospective clients at ease, knowing their investment is in good hands. Most of all, it’s important to have the right property management solution in place to manage your portfolio’s growth. The webcast offers plenty of other tips for growing doors, among them getting out in the community, creating the right vendor network and adding a little personal flare. For more pro tips and insights on how Propertyware can help grow your business, watch the webcast.

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Single Family Property Management: Charting a Path for the Future

Tim Blackwell — Tue, 21 May 2019 17:08:11 +0000

RealWorld 2019, to be held July 21-23 in Orlando, is where single family property management businesses come together. Owners and operators get advice, insights and hands-on experience to chart a path for the future. The first time Real Property Management Tidewater CEO Brandon Reed attended RealWorld, he quickly experienced the industry’s camaraderie. “It was really eye-opening to sit down with other property managers,” he said on a recent Propertyware webcast. “I was under the impression that it was this cut-throat business, nobody was going to share anything. What I learned was that we’re all in it together. You come back just feeling, ‘wow!’ and inspired.” While offering an overview of the rental housing industry and technical expertise on Propertyware, RealWorld has a network-friendly setting that enables property managers and owners to share and discover.

Insights from top industry executives

In the single family track at RealWorld, a number of Propertyware customers will share their successes and provide recommendations on how to better manage day-to-day operations from accounting to leasing and marketing. Organizers anticipate that the single family general session on July 22 will be a must-see. It will set the stage for a full lineup of informational opportunities designed to help operators position themselves to grow their businesses over the next several years. CEO’s and industry experts will frankly discuss the latest single family rental market trends and their strategies and models for growth. “This is a huge opportunity to learn,” Kaplan said. “It’s about networking, fine-tuning skills from a training perspective, getting help with your business and learning about trends in the market.” Some key takeaways of the general session include how operators are using the software to add new revenue streams and drive success in property management.

Educational sessions to support business goals

Following the general session, attendees will have access to a full suite of sessions offering a holistic view of single family operations. These are designed for everyone from hands-on property managers to owners and investors. Propertyware Industry Principal Barbara Kaplan expects this year’s, “Maintain Your Worth – Generate Revenue and Value in Both Hot and Softening Real Estate Markets,” to draw big crowds. In “Unlock Business Success Using Workflows, APIs and Partners,” a customer panel will offer valuable insights on using Propertyware’s new two-way API to automate internal and external systems and extending property management services to achieve goals. Discussions will include topics like understanding the benefits of third-party integrations and discovering revenue opportunities from referral partnerships using the software.

Driving business using automated processes through customizations

RealWorld will also feature “Quick Tips to Hit Your Targets Using Propertyware Customizations and Reports.” The fast-paced session has quick tips to help Propertyware users automate processes through customizations and reports to drive business success. Users can learn how to use custom fields and reports to track anything. “Attending RealWorld is going to help you grow your business,” Kaplan said. Register for RealWorld today!

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Top Five Single Family Acquisition Deal Killers

Leah Mendes — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 15:22:26 +0000

Acquisition can be extremely effective growth strategy or your worst nightmare. To address it effectively, you must have quality partners and technology to prepare you, consistency through the process, the ability to manage scale, and the power to meet expectations for all parties involved. In a recent Propertyware webcast, HomeRiver Group President Andy Propst and Propertyware Product Marketing Director Cassandra Rollins shared insights into the single family acquisition process and common pitfalls to avoid. According to Propst, here are the top five deal killers for a single family acquisition:

1. Lack of preparedness

Many property managers look at their business as a revenue source, but according to Propst, it’s so much more. He recommends viewing your business as an asset that can increase in value and considering how you want it to evolve down the road. By beginning with the end in mind and setting up goals to grow your business, you can make it more marketable when it’s time to sell.

2. Poor financial management

In an acquisition, financials can be difficult to get your arms around and verify. Are the earnings you post on your financials what you are actually earning? Propst says it’s important to ensure the customer’s, tenant’s and business owner’s books are all reconciled. Both the buyer and seller need to understand that the numbers put into the system are accurate. If you reconcile your books on a monthly basis, life is much easier when it comes time to sell your business and investing in a certified audit may be a good idea.

3. Lack of documented processes

When you acquire a company, you also acquire its processes. Propst recommends analyzing these processes so you can best leverage strengths and tweak areas that need improvement. From there, integrate the processes into your business as a whole. Use technology to document all processes, such as business procedures and communications with owners and tenants. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are important for anyone who is building their business and eventually wants to sell. Consider what is driving dollars and bottom line and focus on these areas. Instead of trying to do it all, set a few KPIs that help you reach your goal and place your efforts there. What does Andy recommend to document processes? Tools like Traxion or even simply Microsoft Word.

4. Poor data management

Do you have streamlined property management data? According to Propst, businesses should establish clear policies and procedures for how data is entered so it can be easily accessed and interpreted across the board. When managing multiple platforms (such as a tenant portal and owner portal), you need to establish data standards so you and your team can consistently enter data in the same way and tavoid confusion (e.g.- “TX” instead of “Texas.”)

5. Not knowing your worth

Do you know the value of your business? Property managers who begin with the end in mind by setting clear goals, along with mission and vision statements, are better equipped for long-term success. Be proactive in planning and focus primarily on initiatives that drive revenue for your business. Propst says that “Stepping away from the day-to-day of your business to create a game plan is an investment that will pay tenfold.” Making time to establish, review and adjust your goals is essential to understanding the true value of your business. For full insights from Propst, watch the On-Demand webcast now!

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Are You Planning Properly for Rental Portfolio Growth?

pwadmin — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 21:22:22 +0000

Before joining Propertyware as a senior vice president, Charles Riska helped grow a single-family property management business from a small regional company to over 6,000 doors. This rich experience gives him the ideal vantage point from which to look back and offer advice on how to create a roadmap for growth and institute changes when they become necessary. “Without the right planning and execution, you’ll either grow more slowly than you could, or not at all,” he warns, “and you’ll certainly be less profitable than you would be otherwise.” Along the lifeline of a single-family property management business are predictable tipping points that necessitate changes, he says: “You don’t want these milestones to just creep up on you and leave you scrambling for solutions. If you anticipate them, if you’re proactive and plan, you can experience smooth growth without hitting crisis points in staffing, expenses, customer service and other areas.”

Mom and Pop, wearing too many hats

The classic early growth problem, Riska says, occurs when a small business expands to the point where the staff are wearing too many hats. For example, people who should be concentrating on leasing are buried with prospect and owner phone calls, and sometimes even maintenance issues. “When you’re small, you can get by with people handling all kinds of functions for various properties,” says Riska. “But once you’ve reached a certain number of doors, this becomes an extremely inefficient use of your human resources. Your valuable people are capped at a certain number of doors because they’re buried by too much busy work to take on any more.” The solution, he says, is specialization, often best accomplished by outsourcing. “A contact center, either internal or third-party, becomes critical at some point,” he says. “Without this, you have expensive and talented leasing staff chained to phones for much of the day, handling things that can be handled perfectly by a specialized contact center with people trained in single family property management, like Propertyware’s.” Riska says that to grow large without offloading calls to a contact center virtually guarantees an unnecessarily large and expensive staff. And beyond this, he says, customer service greatly improves with a contact center, since instead of reaching busy leasing staff who must get off the phone quickly, prospects reach reps with the time, training and information at hand to give them everything they need to move a leasing decision forward to the next stage. “They’re also available 24/7, unlike the office, and those off-hour calls aren’t accumulating into a pile of messages that need to be dealt with in the morning,” Riska says. It’s not just prospect calls that can be outsourced but general questions from residents, he adds. “There’s no reason for valuable staff to be stuck on the phone answering questions such as ‘What does this mean on my statement?’ from an owner or ‘What’s this on my ledger?’ from a resident,” Riska says. “You can have less expensive people taking care of these things.” Then there’s maintenance, which after leasing, is the most critical function in property management. “A first-class contact center like Propertyware’s is staffed with people who know exactly what questions to ask in order to be able to enable detailed, actionable work orders,” Riska says. “Often you don’t get this level of information from a busy staff member who just writes down “AC broken.” Riska explains that his former company actually grew to a size where it made sense to outsource maintenance itself altogether. “It was more expensive for us to handle it in-house, with a big payroll burden,” Riska says. “We had strategic contractor agreements in place that allowed us to realize maintenance revenue without boots on the ground.”

Teams of specialists

At a certain growth point, says Riska, the ideal structure of the property management company is an assemblage of teams of experts, both in-house and contracted. “The larger you get, the more it makes sense to have leasing agents doing leasing, maintenance people handling maintenance, accounting people doing accounting and even IT people doing IT,” he explains. “We did actually reach the point where instead of managing our technology in-house we outsourced it to an outside company.” Riska says this structure was used as a selling point to potential owner/clients. “We’d say ‘You’re basically the CEO and we’re your board; we have experts in leasing, customer service, maintenance, accounting, everything, all on your board working for you.’ That’s much more effective structure than a team of people all running around trying to do all kinds of different things outside their core skillsets.”

Alignment of goals

Riska says that the typical PMC is owned by two or more people who divide up duties, often doing the actual work themselves until growth permits hiring. As growth occurs, he says, it is typical for these leaders to become wrapped up in their own areas of oversight and lose sight of the shared strategic goals and vision. “The solution to this is simple,” offers Riska. “My partners and I had monthly meetings to review our written strategy and whether what we were doing was in alignment with that strategy. If we needed to pivot, we did. If we needed to review process changes, we did it in those meetings. Managing the business through growth requires a high level of communication between stakeholders.”

Planning for rental portfolio growth

Business processes change as businesses grow. You don’t do things the same way with three employees and 100 properties as you do with 30 employees and 1,500 doors. That’s why Riska says the PMC must stay well ahead of growth with careful process planning: to what levels of growth are current processes adaptable? Will they work at 500 doors? 1,000? 3,000? “We had four different process manuals between January of 2008 when we had 1,000 doors and July of 2016 when we reached 6,000 doors,” says Riska. “Before we put anything into place, we’d ask ‘Will we have to change this down the road, and if so, how disruptive will this be? Is it better to put something in place now that can handle the growth and changes we anticipate?’” Riska provides the example of businesses growing across state lines. “If you feel you will be expanding to other states but you ignore the differing regulations they might have until you get there, you might find you have to painfully alter the systems and processes you have in place to accommodate the expansion. You’d have been better off building this accommodation into your earlier plans.” And that’s just one example. Riska says that one, three or five-year growth strategies help avoid later impediments to growth in areas as diverse as staffing, IT, maintenance, accounting and taxes, reporting requirements and office space. “The staffing issue, the transition from Mom and Pop wearing many hats to specialization of staff, is alone enough to necessitate advanced planning if you ever want to grow your business and profit,” he says. “But there’s so much more to consider.”

Software matters

When it comes to choosing software that’s scalable, Riska is naturally a bit biased: not just because he’s currently with Propertyware, but also because his former company built their business on its foundation. “We invested in Propertyware after RealPage acquired it and we knew there would be all the resources that come with a large, strong company, including R&D and product improvements,” he says. “The truth is that most software used for single-family property management is designed for businesses with up to maybe 200 or 300 doors,” he continues. “What you see is what you get, and it’s not customizable. You can’t change or add fields, and instead of tailoring the software to the way you do business, it’s vice versa: you have to change your processes to fit the software.” Many small businesses, he says, start with a basic solution that does one or perhaps a few things, then add solutions from other companies as needs grow, ending up with a mish-mash of unintegrated software. “You’ll have a PMC that’s now a decent size using this inefficient assortment of property management software along with generic software such as Excel, and they would have been much better off at an earlier stage to have converted everything to a single solution that does everything they need.” This includes the more advanced reporting that comes with growth, he adds, as larger owners demand more institutional-quality reports. Asked to summarize his advice for PMCs seeking growth, Riska says this: “Establish growth milestones, then look at each of your internal functions to determine the people, processes and technology you’ll need to achieve these milestones. Plan ahead. Ride the wave of growth rather than having it wash over you.”

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4 Ways to Accelerate the Growth of Your Rental Property Management Business

Ashley Chimal — Fri, 05 Jan 2018 23:23:29 +0000

Property managers understand that they can grow their rental property management business organically by providing a great service or product. Additionally, streamlining expenses by outsourcing daily tasks, such as phone calls and driving efficiency with technology like electronic payments, makes for an efficient use of capital. You can also accelerate the growth of your property management business by acquiring an established competitor and adding their clients and assets to your existing business. When you decide to purchase an existing property management business, the years of hard work required to gain new clients has already been accomplished for you. With this in mind, here are some ideas for ways to make this happen:

Call local businesses

Many single family property management businesses that are for sale do not explicitly advertise that they are available for sale; other property management business owners may not be considering selling right away but might do so if someone discusses options with them. If you are a business owner, give them your best sales pitch. You built your business; you have to have some sales acumen, right? Often times, a business owner may not want to alarm current customers or employees by announcing that they are for sale. If you start calling around, you might connect with an owner that has contemplated the possibility.

Attend industry events

You should always strive to be active in single family industry organizations and events. Two great single family industry organizations are NARPM National Association of Residential Property Managers and IREM Institute of Real Estate Management. While you are at events, you can network and ask around for references or professionals who can help you find the right competitor who might be willing to sell. Networking is an indispensable step in discovering potential property management businesses for sale.

Connect with business brokers

A commercial loan broker can facilitate a loan for you, but did you also know that a business broker can point you in the direction of a small business for sale? Business brokers are often hired by the business sellers to help with locating buyers and negotiating.

Search for advertisements

Watch local newspapers or relevant property management publications for single family businesses for sale. You can also search online and locate small businesses for sale in your area. In addition, create your own online ads showing your interest in purchasing a property management business. You can grow your business in multiple ways. Owners of rental property management businesses should strive to drive efficiency and reduce expenses to achieve growth. You understand your market and you should already believe that you provide a differentiated and exceptional service or product. Consider the option of acquiring competitors as another method to fast track the growth of your property management company. Jimmy Warlick works in the sales department at Propertyware and has been with RealPage for seven years. He has worked in the property management industry for 12 years. Before joining Propertyware, Jimmy served in the United States Air Force in Europe and also worked for the U.S. Justice Department. Jimmy is a University of Texas at Dallas graduate and calls the DFW area his home, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

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4 Areas Where You Can Reduce Risk in Rental Property Management

pwadmin — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 21:27:46 +0000

Do you want to know how to grow your rental property portfolio by more than 50%? An integrated risk-reducing solution can help you mitigate risk and bring your budget under control. Screening, paper leases, missed calls and maintenance issues are all risk creators and budget blowers that can hinder portfolio growth: 1. Prospect leads: Tenant screening allows you to accept applications in real-time, screen prospects and process application fees online. It also helps with current state laws regarding the leasing process. Propertyware’s software application is fully customizable and integrated and keeps your properties up to date with affordable, scalable software. Packing a variety of customized data in easy-to-read reports helps property owners find their ideal tenants. 2. Paper leases: Paper is bulky, expensive and time consuming. Avoid the hassle of paper leases with integrated lease software featuring DocuSign. Use electronic record keeping to provide consistency and lower the risks of working with paper, i.e. security breeches, lost pages, and time issues. 3. Missed calls: Missed calls equal missed revenue. With a dedicated contact center, you can lower your likelihood of missing important communication with tenants. Live agents can answer calls and emails during and after business hours regarding maintenance issues and more. This will allow your staff to focus on growing the business instead of answering calls. 4. Messy maintenance: Best in class maintenance software is streamlined, time efficient and customizable for large or small projects. With a mobile app, you can streamline communication and create one work order for multiple vendors, provide faster service, standardize maintenance, integrate invoicing, capture real-time inspection pictures and document communication—from service requests to completion of leases. Propertyware’s James Wagley and Charles Riska have talked more about how you can reduce risk immediately. Watch the webcast here.

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Year in Review: 4 Rental Property Management Questions to Ask

Marc Eiting — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 23:19:27 +0000

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.

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6 Property Management New Year’s Resolutions

Marc Eiting — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 22:37:43 +0000

It’s a new year, with new leaks to fix and new tenants to screen. How can you take your rental property management business to the next level? Here are our top resolution recommendations for property managers:

1. Manage Maintenance

Without a strong scheduling system, property maintenance can quickly become unmanageable. With a regular maintenance schedule, you’ll avoid property emergencies, keep your properties looking their best and you’ll also keep your tenants happier.

2. Connect With Contractors

As a property manager, you must have a list of contractors ready to access at a moment’s notice. As contractors move on, you need to constantly update your vendor list. If this task has slipped off your to-do list, put it on again. This year, make an investment of time and develop a list of preferred vendors so that if an emergency occurs, you’ll have contact information at the ready. You’ll be able to quickly send someone to work on the project and put tenants’ worries at ease. Check contractors’ references thoroughly before making a hiring decision.

3. Find and Keep Your Best Tenants

How do your tenants find you? This year, help tenants find you by improving the SEO and social media connections on your website. Have you ever forgotten to check a tenant’s references or run a credit check? What happens at your initial meeting with your tenants? Screening processes help you find tenants who are the best match for your business. Develop processes that celebrate your tenants as well, such as anniversary gift baskets or discounts for those who’ve paid their rent on time for an entire year.

4. Communicate Well

How is your tenant and owner communication? If you’re feeling overwhelmed or your tenants are underserved by your current systems, it’s time for an overhaul. Whether you implement a contact center to manage after-hours questions and concerns or you add a tenant and owner portal to your site, you need to have multiple ways to communicate with your tenants and owners. Adding features such as a tenant portal can help your tenants pay their bills, get information about their property and account, and communicate with you at times that are convenient for them.

5. Pinpoint Seasonal Trends

What’s coming up in the spring? It’s important to plan for trends and create ways to manage maintenance, cash flow, and screening throughout the year. Using your rental property management software, examine seasonal trends and create a plan to ensure that your business runs smoothly month to month.

6. Support Your Employees

While you place considerable attention on tenants and properties, it’s also important to consider your employees. Identify employee needs, which may include a better conflict resolution processes, improved benefits, and software products to help them get organized. Set goals to improve the internal processes of your organization, and you’ll find that the external results improve, as well.

Ready to get started?

Could rental property management software help your business this year? If you’re trying to get organized, maintain your properties, and retain your tenants, look to Propertyware. Watch Demo video today.

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5 Ways a Property Management Company Can Benefit Your Portfolio

Leah Mendes — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 15:21:13 +0000

Your rental portfolio is growing, and managing resident requests is getting more difficult. Maintenance at some of your properties needs extra attention, and renewals are just around the corner. There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for you. Just keeping up is leaving opportunities on the table. It may be time to enlist the help of a property management company to handle the details. The obvious upside to owning rental property is passive income. With owning investment properties comes negotiating obstacles that require time and extra money if not managed efficiently. Failing to efficiently navigate the difficult issues inherent to property management can stall growth opportunities and ultimately stall the portfolio’s growth. “Property management is a problem-based business,” says Amelia Christensen, Director of Property Management for Homespot Property Management LLC . “If we don’t have problems, we really don’t have a job.”

Relationships are everything in property management

Christensen, who has been a property manager since 2011 at the family-based business in Portales, N.M., says even the smallest of single-family owners can benefit from letting someone handle the details. Property managers can be a buffer between owners and the resident and help find common ground with issues that concern both parties. In addition, companies like Homespot Property Management, LLC, can help with the entire scope of asset management so owners can improve their portfolios. The key, Christensen says, is to work with a property manager that focuses on relationship-based management. Forging mutually beneficial relationships is how Homespot Property Management, LLC, has organically grown from managing 35 single-family properties in 2011 to more than 350. A couple of owners have about 30 properties, but smaller portfolios compose the rest the company’s business. “Working with a property management company is a relationship based thing,” she said. “You need to have a good relationship. There are going to be mistakes made, there are going to be problems and you want to be working with someone who you’re comfortable working through problems with.” A strong working relationship also helps create a greater bond with residents. With a property management company, the owner can let someone else help with unpleasant issues while improving relationships with residents. “I have owners who talk to tenants and they’ll always say, ‘Go talk to Homespot for the details’,” Christensen said. “They don’t want to be the bad buy, they want to be the happy, good guy.” It’s also a good idea to clearly understand the fees for the property management company’s services. “You want to know what they are going to charge, how they charge it,” Christensen said. “Do they charge whether the property is rented or not, are there flat fees involved, or is it a percentage based off of rent, are there associated fees for handling maintenance repairs, that kind of thing.”

5 Benefits of working with a Property Management Company

Here are five benefits of working with a property management company, according to Christensen:

1. Keeping an eye on the details

A property management company keeps an eye on the little things entailed in day-to-day property management. Managing leases and renewals are key functions, as well as handling maintenance issues. Also, PMCs help plan for bigger maintenance issues like tree trimming, painting, repairs and owner improvements.

2. Charting a path

Determine what you want your rental portfolio to look like and enlist the help of a property management company to help plan for the future. A PMC can help the property owner take a look at the bigger picture and ultimately determine how the asset will be used toward achieving an end goal.

3. Asset and financial planning

In addition to handling the books through a property management system like Propertyware, PMCs can help owners know what to ask of their accountant for tax planning.

4. Handling the dirty work

Christensen says owners can empower experienced PMCs to do the background checks, collect money and manage the tough issues that go along with rental properties. She said often unknowing owners can duped by residents who want to take advantage of the system. “Most owners want to be the hero, you want to help someone out, but sadly there are people who take advantage of kindness.”

5. Provide that special touch

Christensen says good property management revolves around great relationships with owners. When the PMC and owner work in harmony, good things are accomplished. A PMC should be able to work with you to provide a level of service everyone is comfortable with. “You have to have someone you can work with during the good times and even in the bad times,” Christensen said. “You have to be able to celebrate wins but be able to trudge through the losses. It’s part of owning rentals.”

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How RentVest Uses Technology Trends to Improve the Customer Experience

Leah Mendes — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 20:30:03 +0000

When Benton Cotter of Arizona-based RentVest discusses technology, you can hear the excitement in his voice. “The experience of our prospects, tenants and owners has been completely transformed by technology,” he says. “Everything has gotten faster, easier and less frustrating, and it has happened very quickly.”

Easy access

At the top of his list for innovation is access: efficient communication between RentVest and their customers. He says the key is ”like media” – communicating with customers in the manner they choose to communicate, whether it’s via the tenant portal, email, Facebook or phone calls. The way the customer contacts RentVest is the way they’re responded to. A Facebook message, for example, will get a response back through Facebook. “Everyone has their own preference for communicating,” says Cotter. “If they contact us through one medium and we get back to them through another, they might not see the response in a timely manner. So we keep up with all the various communication platforms and are going back and forth with customers in many different ways in the course of a day.” Cotter mentions that he’s seeing this sort of “like media” communication in other areas of his life. “I clicked on a Facebook ad for a phone case I liked, and when I ordered it the receipt came back through Facebook rather than the usual email.”

Paperless payments

Online rental payments is the next area of innovation Cotter lists as transformative in the business. “Our renter radius here in Arizona goes out 120 miles, so it’s just not practical for many of our customers to drop off a check,” he says. Not only do customers love the ability to pay rent and fees online by check or credit card, but RentVest has experienced a significant reduction in labor. With fewer checks to handle manually and to record and enter into the accounting system, the company has actually been able to eliminate an accounting position, a considerable expense reduction.

Self showings

“There’s nothing more frustrating for prospects than getting really excited about a property only to have it leased out before they’ve heard from an agent to arrange for a mutually convenient time to make it to the property,” says Cotter. “But we’re using an app that lets prospects get to the property quickly for a self-showing without even having an agent there.” He gives the example of a prospect who sees the perfect home listed on Zillow. They click a button to qualify for a viewing, supplying basic information and a scan or photo of their driver’s license, and are issued a PIN that lets them into the property for a self-showing as little as an hour or two after they’ve discovered the home, and without having to make arrangements with an agent. Self-showings have not only been popular with prospects, they’ve also significantly increased RentVest’s level of prospect engagement. Leads that once fell through the cracks or were responded to too slowly, resulting in prospects moving on, are now being captured and engaged immediately, and the number of monthly showings has risen. To further close any gaps in serving prospects, RentVest has called on Propertyware’s property management contact center to ensure all calls and emails are answered and responded to promptly and professionally. “The agents themselves are just too busy to provide this level of customer service,” says Cotter.

Leasing without the labor

Paper-based leasing has always been a headache for both renters and property managers. At RentVest it entailed meeting in person at the office or home to review and sign the documents, getting them to the broker to review and sign, then back to the renter. But in mid-2016, RentVest took advantage of Propertyware’s online leasing capabilities to take paper out of the process. The e-documents move between the various parties via the Internet, and are legally finalized with an e-signature. Cotter says this process saves two or three days of hassles. Applications are easier these days too, with the capability to upload scans or pics of driver’s licenses, pay stubs and other supporting materials.

Tech for tomorrow

Cotter is clearly enthusiastic not just about what RentVest has already put into place, but what’s to come. He lists as one possibility the addition of new forms of payment – PayPal and peer-to-peer, for example. Another is the increasing ability to do everything with a cell phone, as functionality improves and people do more on phones and less on laptops. Cotter concludes: “In a recent meeting, we talked about the fact that already more than half of renters are millennials, and it’s projected that within five years 67% of renters will be under 30. These folks grew up on technology, and the more we can use it to make their lives easier, the happier they will be. At the same time, we’re better serving our owners, and reducing our labor and headaches. Everyone wins.” Benton Cotter serves as the Chief Operating Officer at RentVest, a Nationwide single-family property management company based in Mesa, Arizona. Guy Lyman is a New Orleans-based writer specializing in residential rental real estate.

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