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Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

In today’s day and age, rental property management technology is very prevalent and extremely useful. However, some landlords and tenants want to preserve human interaction. After all, human interaction is beneficial for both parties to better understand who they are dealing with. On the other hand, property management technology is also great because it helps streamline so many processes within a rental business. If you want to learn how landlords can balance human interaction and property management technology, just keep reading. 

What is Rental Property Management Technology?

Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

If you don’t know what rental property management technology is or how to use it, you’ve come to the right place. Management technology comes in many different forms and can be used in many different ways. Essentially, rental management technology allows landlords, managers, and tenants to accomplish various tasks, such as rental payments, maintenance requests, accounting tasks, and more. 

For example, one of the main forms of rental management technology is project management software. Keep reading to learn about rental property project management applications and other helpful management technology. 

Project Management 

Project management systems are helpful for anyone self-employed, including landlords. Rental owners can use project management apps like Asana, monday.com, ClickUp, and more. These applications allow landlords to keep track of budgets, timelines, milestones, and other managerial tasks. 

While each project management system has its pros and cons, Asana is good for tracking tasks and implementing other marketing tools. Landlords and managers highly rate monday.com for its customizable, collaborative features and task management. Finally, ClickUp is similar to monday.com and automatically allows landlords to import work from other tools.

Digital Maintenance Requests

When you own a ton of rental properties, it’s hard to keep track of maintenance requests for each of them. If you have to keep track of requests physically instead of digitally, it can get a bit hectic. So, many successful landlords implement a digital maintenance request system for tenants and maintenance workers to communicate effectively. 

Certain apps, such as innago, allow tenants to upload photos and videos along with their maintenance issues. Similarly, it will enable landlords, property managers, and maintenance workers to communicate effectively with status updates, work orders, and more. 

Online Payment Options

Like completing maintenance requests for multiple properties, it can be hard to keep track of rental payments when you own more than 5-10 rental properties. Along with that, most tenants don’t want to go to the bank to take out money or write a check every month for their rent. So, the easiest way to do this is to implement another form of management technology—an online payment system. 

Luckily, landlords can take advantage of tons of different apps. For example, RentRedi is a property management app that streamlines a ton of different management tasks, like rent collection, tenant screening, maintenance requests, and more. 

Accounting Software

Tax season and tracking finances can be difficult for any business, let alone a rental business where money is coming in and out all the time. So, accounting software can be extremely beneficial to keep accurate records of income and expenses. Some of the most common ways to track finances include FreshBooks, QuickBooks, and Excel. 

While Excel is a bit more simple and old-fashioned, FreshBooks and QuickBooks are both designed for small businesses to track financial transactions. Similarly, landlords can keep track of total spending, profits, revenue, and more with this software. 

Lease Generation

Coming up with a solid lease agreement is one of the most important parts of owning a rental business. Without a good lease, it’s hard to keep your property protected and your income stable.Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

Luckily, landlords don’t have to spend hours coming up with a solid lease agreement for each tenant these days. Instead, they can count on tools like TurboTenant to construct state-specific lease agreements quickly. 

Once you fill out the standard information necessary for the lease, TurboTenant can construct the lease specifics, such as: 

  • Rent, deposit, and fees
  • Number of occupants allowed
  • Pets, smoking, and insurance
  • Utilities and maintenance
  • And more

How Can Landlords Maintain Good Human Interaction?

Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

Thanks to management technology it’s no surprise that landlords can handle most things digitally these days. However, some human interaction is still necessary to create a meaningful and transparent landlord-tenant relationship. Luckily, there are many things that landlords can do to preserve an in-person relationship with their tenants

After all, one of the most important aspects of running a rental business company is maintaining a healthy balance between human interaction and technology. While management technology can help you stay organized and keep tabs on the critical parts of your rental business, getting to know your tenants, workers, and business partners on a personal level is essential too. 

That said, keep reading as we go over some ways that landlords can keep up good human interaction while using management technology. 

Schedule In-Person Tours

Even though these days you don’t necessarily have to be present when your tenants visit the property, it’s still a good idea to do so. After the start of the pandemic, virtual tours became very popular and are still a necessary part of the process. However, when your tenants go to view the property in person for the first time, plan on meeting them there to give them a thorough tour of the property and answer any questions that pop up immediately. 

Perform Property Inspections

Balancing Human Interaction and Property Management Technology

Property inspections are a necessary part of owning a rental business. That said, it can be another point for landlords or property managers to connect further with their tenants. Property inspections are typically done in person with the tenant present. However, when Covid-19 hit, tenants were able to view the inspection virtually. Now that the pandemic is slowing down, inspections are a great way to connect with tenants in-person. 

Keep in Contact with Tenants

Finally, being available for tenants when they need you is essential in being a good landlord. If you constantly blow off their requests or wait a long time to respond, it can put a wedge in your relationships. So, aside from being available for your tenants through text, email, and phone, make sure to check in with them regularly to see how things are going with the property. Make sure to let them know you’re available and willing to help them with any issues that arise. 

Maintaining a Healthy Balance for Your Rental Business

Landlords should make it a priority to keep a healthy balance between management technology and human interaction. After all, too much of either can be overwhelming and ineffective for both landlords and tenants. However, some landlords don’t know how to utilize management technology to the best of their ability. 

So, if you need help streamlining your rental business, contact a trusted management team like Bay Property Management Group. With the help of our industry professionals, we can handle every step of the rental process with ease. 

When it comes to tenant screening, emergency maintenance, eviction services, rent collection, and more, we make it easy for landlords to run a successful rental business. So, if you need property management in Washington DC, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Northern Virginia or other surrounding counties, contact us today!