Access to technology has grown, and if you’re not using it to rent out your Prince George’s County property, you may be missing out on opportunities to make the management of your investment more efficient. As professional property managers, we invest heavily in software, platforms, and tools that save our owners time and money.
The technology we use creates a better rental experience for everyone. There’s more documentation and transparency and it’s easier to hold ourselves and our residents accountable.
There are dozens of different ways that the right technology can benefit your Prince George’s County rental property. In this blog, we’re going to highlight three specific advantages.
If you’re an owner or investor in the process of hiring a new Prince George’s County property manager, make sure you work with a company that has access to the best tech available. You’ll find your income is higher, your expenses are lower, and your ability to communicate and stay informed is much improved.
1. Technology Helps You Place Prince George’s County Tenants Faster
Vacancy costs can kill your ROI. If you’re looking for ways to limit your vacancy time, consider investing in the type of technology that speeds up and improves the leasing process. In our experience, good technology helps with:
- Marketing and advertising
- Rental property showings
- Tenant screenings
- Signing the lease agreement
All of these things take less time, which means your tenants get approved and moved in faster, limiting the number of days your property is unoccupied.
Let’s start with marketing. Before you advertise your rental home, you’ll have to price the property correctly. A home that’s overpriced will not attract a wide pool of tenants. How do you know in what range to price your home? By accessing good data.
Marketing your rental property is far more effective when you’re doing online advertising. The right technology will allow you to take better pictures and syndicate your listings across all the most popular rental sites in and around Prince George’s County. Instead of posting your listing one site at a time, you can blanket the entire internet with the property you have for rent. If you’re working with a property manager, their website will also be a valuable tool in marketing your rental home.
Showings today require technology that includes smart locks, digital keys, and scheduling software that allows tenants to easily make an appointment to see your property. Our experience has shown that when tenants can see the home on their own and access the property at times that are best for them, they’re more likely to fill out an application right after viewing the home.
Tenant screening is difficult without good tech. You’ll need to run credit and background reports, look for nationwide eviction histories, and verify income and other documentation. This can take weeks if you’re doing all the legwork yourself. But, if you’re utilizing some of the background checking technology that’s available, you’re going to get the information you need in as few as 24 or 48 hours.
Most property managers have access to this screening tech on their own. If you’re placing your own tenant independently, you can still contract with an online tenant screening agency who can provide some objective information on the tenants you’re considering.
Remember that fair housing compliance is critical. With an established, tech-driven, and consistent screening process, you’re protecting yourself with very little effort.
Lease agreements can be signed digitally with a platform like DocuSign. You can still take the steps and the time necessary to answer questions from your new tenants about what the lease requires. You can upload applicable addenda, including pet policies when necessary. When both you and your tenants can look at the lease online together, you’re both saving time.
Make sure you’re using all the technology you can access to make the leasing process fast, efficient, and effective.
2. Technology Allows for Automated, Online Systems
Technology helps us to manage Prince George’s County rental homes with more consistency and efficiency. We’re able to create automated systems for everything from rent collection to maintenance requests. This leads to fewer mistakes, better time management, and complete documentation for everything associated with your investment.
Maintenance systems are easier to set up and implement. With tenants requesting routine repairs online, we can create a documented timeline of the work that has been needed and completed on your property. We can keep vendors, owners, and tenants on the same page when it comes to scheduling work and ordering parts.
You’ll have a better grip on preventative maintenance when you’re using the right technology, too. Track pest control, landscaping, and snow removal. Collect quotes easily and efficiently for work you know you’ll need, whether it’s seasonal maintenance or upgrades during a turnover.
Inspection reports are much easier to complete and share with our technology. Instead of writing everything down by hand and taking photographs that we’ll have to upload later, we have systems that allow us to document a home’s condition while we’re there. As an owner, you’ll receive detailed reports with photos and videos so you know exactly how your property looks.
Perhaps one of the most important benefits of property management technology is the ability to see your money and exactly where it’s going. Accounting reports and financial management is so much easier. There’s less room for error and a lot more transparency.
Tracking the income and expenses associated with your Prince George’s County rental property is far more reliable with good technology. Our rental property owners appreciate how quickly we can provide reports, statements, tax forms, and anything necessary to get an idea of how your investment is performing. Use your online owner’s portal to track maintenance invoices, see if rent has been paid, and check your expenses.
3. Technology Facilitates Better Communication with Tenants and Owners
Technology makes our communication with owners, tenants, vendors, and other professional partners a lot more streamlined. We’re more accessible and responsive thanks to the tools we use to communicate.
Online portals are popular, and you can find them with most management companies. Our online portal allows for the following benefits to tenants:
- Online rental payments. Tenants can pay from the comfort of their own home, linking a bank account or a debit card. They can set up recurring reminders and automated bank drafts.
- Online maintenance requests. Routine repairs can be requested electronically. Tenants can be as detailed as possible in explaining the problem and even include photos.
Owners benefit from online portals, too.
- Owners can view when rent is paid and see when it’s deposited into the bank account provided.
- Invoices for maintenance can be viewed, approved, and paid.
- You’ll see monthly and annual financial statements. You can download your 1099 at tax time.
We always welcome phone calls, and we do our best to answer promptly and make return calls when necessary. But, it’s not the only option when someone has a question or a concern. Instead of calling on the phone and waiting to talk to us, we’re more than happy to receive a quick text with a question or read an email that comes in outside of general business hours. It gives us time to organize a response and do whatever research may be necessary to provide the required information.
Our investment in technology has opened the doors for many different methods of communication, and we’re present and available on all of them. We work with a large population of tenants who prefer texts and emails to phone calls or in-person meetings. We use our online system to track and document all correspondence, keeping us organized and compliant with all state, local, and federal laws.
You can even find us on social media.
Our ability to communicate with advanced technology is especially beneficial to our investors who live out of the state or even out of the country. We can respond to questions and get in touch without worrying about time zones, cell signals, and schedules.
Here’s another important benefit to technology that’s sometimes difficult to quantify but still critically important: tenants prefer technology. Most of the tenants you’re trying to attract to your rental property are very comfortable with apps, online platforms, and digital capabilities. If you can show potential renters that you’re set up for things like online rental payments, you’re going to have a distinct advantage over those landlords who do not embrace these things.
As Prince George’s County property managers, we make technology a priority. Personalized, customized management is extremely important to us. We like to talk with our tenants and our owners. But we also know that with good technology, we save time on a lot of the tasks and responsibilities that would keep us from investing our time in developing great relationships with owners, tenants, vendors, and other community partners. We stay ahead of all the tech trends and educate ourselves on best practices.
If you’d like to hear more about how technology helps us do a better job, please contact us at Stripe Management. We work with owners, investors, and properties in Upper Marlboro, Prince George’s County, Washington, D.C., Capitol Heights, District Heights, Baltimore, and anywhere in the DC metro area.