If your PM firm isn’t using a purpose-built property management system, you could be losing out. The property management business is dynamic, and a cloud-based solution is the best tool for running a more effective, efficient property management firm. Here’s why:
1. Lower Repair & Maintenance Costs
When you keep your building and its units in good repair, not only are tenants happy, but it continues to improve the value of the investment. A good property management system has a maintenance component which includes property inspections, PO management, work order management and a portal for maintenance requests and tracking. It allows you to automate many aspects of the maintenance function, reducing paperwork and admin time.
As well, purchase ordering management can save you money through good planning and strong vendor relations. Here, too, you can reduce costs – both paper-related and manual labour/admin time – by automatically generating work orders from POs.
2. Higher Quality Tenants
No one wants the bad apple – a professional tenant who knows and exploits every loophole to stay in the unit without paying a penny. You need to be able to safeguard yourself against these scammers.
Higher quality tenants are the ideal, because they:
- Pay their rent on time
- Don’t cause any damage to the unit
- Have less wear and tear
- Are quiet and don’t cause problems with their neighbours
- Renew their leases
A property management system helps property managers put rigorous, consistent processes in place to properly screen tenants. For example, our system uses a state-of-the-art algorithm to analyze more than 30points of interest, such as credit score and debt, income and required rent. You’ll eliminate applications that do not meet your approval without having to lift a finger.
3. Higher Retention Levels
While some tenants will leave due to issues out of your control, loss of job or moving for a new career opportunity for example, many tenants leave over very solvable issues. Typically these issues are: 1.) repairs that were not done or not done to tenant satisfaction, or 2.) problems with the neighbours.
A property management system has a tenant portal where your renters can quickly and conveniently communicate with you regarding a needed repair or a complaint about a neighbour. Because there is a digital record, there is no worry about anything slipping through the cracks. You can easily track all maintenance work, and the renter can even complete a short survey about their level of satisfaction with the repair. This way any poor quality work and potential tenant unhappiness can be dealt with instantly. Regarding noise complaints, once a tenant has complained about a neighbour, you can use the portal to privately communicate with the neighbour to validate the complaint and work to resolve any conflict.
When tenants are happy and well cared for, they tend to stay in a rental longer. Reduced turnover saves time and money!
4. Faster Rent Collection
No property manager wants to spend time chasing rent payments. The way you handle rent collection and late payments can be the difference between success and failure. Securing online, on-time payments through a property management system is the only way to ensure both cash flow and rent collection efficiency. And, when your tenants do pay late, you can easily send invoices for any late fees.
5. Shorter Time on the Market
A property management system will help you perform four key tasks that have a direct impact on how long it takes to fill your vacancies:
- Coordinate Move-Out inspections with the outgoing tenant. This will ensure that you can oversee any repairs or painting that needs to be done to minimize the time until you can list the property.
- Schedule maintenance in advance. Talk to your vendors or maintenance people as soon as the tenant leaving gives their notice. This way you can schedule any re-keying, carpet cleaning, painting and other touch-ups or upgrades in the days after the tenant moves out.
- Effectively market your property. A property management system allows you to automate your ILS ads in order to get a larger pool of candidates in a shorter period of time.
- Accept online applications. Some people might rent the available unit based on photos, and an online application speeds up that approval process. If the prospective tenant does come for a showing, and is willing to commit, they can start the application process right away on their phone. This ensures you close deals faster.
6. Fewer Legal Hassles
Every day property managers juggle mission-critical things like rent collection, tenant screening, building inspections, maintenance, terminating leases, evictions and on and on. Because property management software is industry-specific, it is tailored to the needs of PM firms. It helps you keep tabs on all areas of potential risk, and ensures that digital records of all communication are in one spot, something that is invaluable when facing the prospect of having to evict a tenant. A centralized repository of records, communication and task tracking reduces vulnerabilities and potential lawsuits.
7. More Free Time
When property managers are knee-deep in paperwork and manual processes, it slows them down. It also increases the risk of error, and re-work. By consolidating information and standardizing processes, you can implement automation. This gives property managers back hours in their day. Where property managers add value is in building relationships, with both tenants and owners. By making sure all those moving parts keep moving. This is what moves the needle on the property management business and delivers value to the building owners.
8. Better Reporting
You can’t change what you can’t measure. A property management system gives you a dashboard where you can instantly set up KPIs to see how your properties are performing. As well, you can pull financial reports, maintenance reports, and drill down by building, region or property manager. It also gives you the ability to empower owners to get secure login to reports. Share financial and operations reports with a simple click, integrated permissions tool. Unlike downloaded reports, presentations, and email attachments, shared reports guarantee the data remains safe, secure and fully in your control.
How Property Vista Helps
We can help deliver on all of these benefits -- and more -- with our property management system. All your needs are now together in one unified property management system. Available on any browser-enabled device. At Property Vista, we provide both the technology you need to better understand your business and the tools needed to make changes. Our solutions come in a modular format, allowing you to choose the services you need, when you need them. See pricing and get a demo.
