There is no shortage of things to do when you are a landlord, ranging from staying up to date with leases and dealing with tenant repair requests. When you have more than one property, this is magnified and it can lead to important tasks being forgotten. Luckily, there are a number of helpful technologies that can make everything a little bit simpler. Many landlords have already streamlined their business through the use of technology, saving them both time and money. Here’s how technology can help to improve your rental property business.
Incorporate The Cloud
There’s certainly a lot of paperwork that comes with managing a property; tenant leases, maintenance requests, rent collection, and so on. This is a lot of paperwork to manage just to run a rental property business on a daily basis, which is why many landlords are incorporating cloud services. With cloud services, a number of landlord and tenant processes can be done remotely. It’s a lot easier to finalize a lease when electronic document transfers and signings are possible. There’s no need to worry about finding a convenient time for both parties to meet, sign leases, and exchange documents. Cloud services also reduce the space needed to store hard copies of paperwork, as everything is stored in the cloud.
Keeping property records in the cloud means that everything is available at all times, regardless of where you are. Within seconds, a landlord can see the entire history of a tenant or property. It’s very easy to access contractor information, warranties, and leases when everything is stored in the cloud and can be accessed from anywhere. It speeds up a lot of daily processes.
Online Tenant Records and Payments
A lot of tenants would prefer to make payments online and offering them is a huge selling point. This saves them a lot of time, as there’s no need to fill in a check or take it to the office. There are a lot of platforms that allow landlords to accept online rent payments, but it’s not just the tenants that benefit. As a landlord, you will benefit from being able to manage a number of payments in a simple way. If there are any disputes or discrepancies, everything will be logged online and therefore it’s very easy to reach a resolution. There are even some online payment systems that allow tenants to log requests online and as a landlord, making repair and issue management simple.
Manage Calls With Virtual Call Centers
If you rent a lot of properties, you are sure to have received out of offices phone calls from disgruntled tenants. Whether there is an urgent problem or they are just calling at an inconvenient time, managing calls can be time-consuming and stressful. However, standard call centers are costly and you are unlikely to have the call volume to justify this cost. This is why a lot of landlords are using technology and setting up a virtual call center. Services such as RingCentral and Google Voice allow landlords to direct all tenant calls to a virtual call center; these calls will be routed to different people, depending on the problem. This means that tenants only have one general contact number to use and landlords aren’t left having to answer each and every telephone call.
Simplified Property Marketing
It’s vital for a landlord to advertise their available properties as this is what guarantees a continuous cash flow and low rates of unoccupied properties. With technology, this is a lot simpler. Trulia, Zillow, and other similar apps allow landlords to advertise available properties with ease. Descriptions, photographs, location, school information, and amenities are all there for a potential tenant to see. Scheduling a time to look at the property can be done with the touch of a button, as can applications. This allows landlords to weed out the tenants that they are interested in, without wasting time on those they are not.
Thanks to technology, managing rental properties is now easier than ever for landlords. However, that’s not to say that technology solves every problem. If you have multiple properties and are struggling to keep up, you may still benefit from property manager services. With the latest technology and rental solutions, a property manager is there to oversee everything.
