Between liaising with property managers in different locations and managing dozens of residents and potential tenants, property management operations can be overwhelming. This is particularly true as your property management company scales.
Luckily, automated tools can make manual tasks more efficient and allow your team to focus more on strategic work. Building a strong tech stack means you can target each area of your day-to-day operations to streamline your workflow and impress everyone you do business with.
Here, we’ll explore some of the software you should consider to keep up with the competitive, fast-changing rental industry. We’ll also explore a suite of tools that can enable you to protect your properties, residents, and professional relationships rather than working to fix issues once they’ve already occurred.
To ensure a steady stream of happy owners and residents as you’re scaling your property management business, be sure to stay on top of each of these areas of operations:
Automated solutions reduce the risk of human error and speed up manual tasks. And by integrating software with your property management software (PMS) of choice, you can streamline your property operations process and free up your team to focus on managing things like owner relationships and tenant satisfaction.
Let’s explore some of the automated and integrated solutions you should consider.
Look out for a property management system that includes lead management as well as resident management tools. This will allow you to update sites with details about vacant units and collate prospective tenants’ contact details so you can message them inside the same solution.
You’ll also be able to scale your business more easily with a PMS that includes a website builder. This will enable you to move away from competitive rental marketplaces and build your brand. And when you have all your properties in one digital space, you can provide a cohesive online experience that showcases your services in the best possible way.
Streamlining maintenance operations is one way you can help your team work more efficiently, but you can prevent problems from occurring in the first place with monitoring technology like Minut. With one solution that integrates with your PMS, you can:
Pro tip: We designed our solutions to be privacy-first, so you don’t need to worry about staying compliant with residential property law. Minut devices don’t have any cameras, nor do they record any sound.
Running tenant background checks manually means looking up prospective residents’ credit scores and criminal background information. This can be time-consuming and, because it’s not realistic to check every single database for each potential renter, problematic tenants can slip through the cracks.
With tenant screening software, you can cover all your bases by running effective checks that encompass all the major credit reference agencies, criminal records, and rental history reports. You can even incorporate additional criteria, such as employment verification, income validation, and previous landlord references.
Texting is one of the best ways to communicate with renters efficiently. You’ll save money and confusion as you won’t have to rely on complex phone systems and chains of missed calls to get in touch with residents. Even better, tenants will feel reassured by having a more direct way to contact your team than emailing.
SMS software can help you get as close to real-time communication as possible. You can even set up automated messages with support for common queries and schedule messages to get ahead of potential maintenance issues. An ideal solution will also assign a different phone number to each one of your units to help your team stay on top of tenant relations with a growing portfolio.
By unifying rent collection, invoicing, and reporting within one software solution, your team can save hours of work each week. You’ll no longer need to navigate one platform to manage your rental income and another three to download data in the format each property owner prefers. Instead, you’ll get an instant overview of cash flow and profitability.
Top-tier software will also allow you to streamline and speed up rent roll. Real-time reminders can encourage tenants to make more likely payments, and automatic rent receipt distribution makes for a more efficient end-of-month period and reduces unnecessary back-and-forth communications.
The bottom line? The best approach to streamlining property management operations is proactively minimizing the amount of work you’ll have to do in the future.
Instead of spending hours dealing with unhappy renters on the phone after they’ve had trouble getting in contact with you, for example, you could implement software that makes texting easy. And instead of manually creating maintenance requests and calming frustrated neighbors after a party that got out of hand, you could install a Minut device, get instant notifications, and automatically send messages to residents.
Every bit of time and effort you save could free your team up to better focus on business growth!
Property managers should stay informed about local, state, and federal regulations, attend industry seminars or workshops, and consult with legal professionals to ensure compliance with new or updated laws.
Property managers can take a cost-effective approach to their property maintenance with preventative action. To avoid costly maintenance bills down the line, schedule regular inspections, develop a network of trusted vendors, and use sound and cigarette smoke monitoring solutions like Minut to prevent damage from occurring.
When handling an eviction, it’s important to follow legal procedures meticulously, thoroughly document all the steps you take, and communicate clearly with the tenant empathetically.
