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Property owners need to address a number of responsibilities at a time. From providing maintenance for properties, addressing tenant requests, to approving rental applications, running a rental property business, indeed, means having more than just a full-time job.
That said, property owners will really benefit from modern solutions that actually streamline these tasks. The need for new solutions even becomes more apparent when one considers the marketing side of a rental property business (marketing vacant or new properties) on top of all those things.
Thankfully, managing rental properties has now become easier because of the advancements in technology. It’s an excellent idea to take advantage of modern tools. It’s no wonder why professional property management companies are already utilizing these assets, too.
Take a look at several ways how technology can help improve your rental property business.
1. Access Important Information Anytime And Anywhere
The world is already in the cloud storage age. What does that mean for your business? Well, gone are the days when you still see mountains of paperwork in your office, making it extremely difficult to find important pieces of information.
Without the need to spend hours searching through boxes, you can now find out the type of insurance a specific renter has or pull up the lease quickly if a renter is disputing something.
Cloud storage enables property owners to access anything they need quickly, anytime, and anywhere. Cloud storage doesn’t only reduce in-office clutter, but also allows you to become more efficient. Such technology is, no doubt, a win for everybody.
2. Self-Guided Tours Are Now Possible!
Scheduling conflicts usually happen when meeting prospects if you’re offering several rental properties. Automated scheduling and tour will solve this problem. Provided that your property’s door has a smart lock installed on it, you or your secretary can just answer the call from a prospect who’s interested in checking the building out.
After taking a look at the property viewing calendar and confirming that there’s no scheduling conflict, she will, then, provide the prospective tenant with a one-time access code that will enable them to open the lockbox. They can get inside the house unaccompanied or without a leasing agent being physically present.
Many rental property business owners are already taking advantage of self-guided tours, which, of course, meets the rapidly growing interest of consumers to view a property at their own time and own pace.
What you can do as the owner or the property manager after the tour is to make a follow-up call. It’s even possible to establish alerts so that you’ll be kept informed as the tour process progresses. Can you imagine how convenient would that be for you and your prospective tenants?
3. Accept Online Payments
Is accepting online payments beneficial? Well, yes, and it is for a variety of reasons. First, tenants often become much more reliable when an online payment system is in place than if you require them to pay via cash, money order, or check.
You can even give them the option of setting up automatic payments to ensure you’ll always receive their payments on time. Second, it takes away the hassle of having to make a trip going to the bank every time you need to deposit funds from tenants.
More importantly, being able to maintain an online payment ledger would mean you can easily solve any dispute that may arise later.
In an eviction case, for instance, there won’t be much question about the payment history of a tenant if you can instantly produce their record of partial, later, or missing payments using an online ledger. You can’t go wrong with this technology as long as you’re making payments easy and safe for your clients.
4. Maintenance Requests Can Be Addressed More Efficiently
Thanks to technology, tenants can now easily log their maintenance request into their accounts online to let you know about anything that needs to be fixed at their property. If you’ve already tried keeping track of requests manually before, you know the hassle, and you know how beneficial a maintenance request system can be.
The good thing about using property management software is that tenants can mark their requests urgent so you’d know you have to get out there in the property as soon as possible. It also means that you can put into the queue anything that can still wait.
5. Rental Property Business Accounting Has Become More Reliable
Maintenance expenses, fees, security deposits, rent, and all other costs have to be tracked. As a property owner, you know accounting for these can sometimes be a headache, especially if you don’t have an accountant to help you. Thankfully, there are now accounting software that can make the process not only a breeze, but also more accurate.
You can upload bills, invoices, and receipts using your smartphone camera. The usually arduous task of filing taxes becomes more comfortable with accounting software, too.
Conclusion
To minimize frustration and optimize efficiency in today’s world, owners of rental properties have to leverage technological tools. Technology is benefiting both the landlord and the tenant.
A rental relationship that’s actually focused on their needs becomes possible for tenants. Property owners, on the other hand, can avoid unnecessary wasting of time on their responsibilities to make life easier for their clients.