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Making the Most of Your Real Estate Agent's Expertise

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Making the Most of Your Real Estate Agent's Expertise

Buying a new home is an exciting experience, but there is a lot that has to be considered if you want to make sure that your investment is a solid one. For example, while it isn’t required, it is a good idea to have your real estate agent hire an independent inspector to have prospective homes personally inspected for safety and condition before making an offer. Learning how your real estate agent can best help you before actually hiring an agent will ensure that the person you work with has the experience and ideas needed to get the results that you want. On this website, you can expect to find out how to find a great real estate agent and how you can best tap into the talents.

2 Ways New Property Management Software Could Make Your Job Easier

7 December 2015
 Categories: Real Estate, Articles

If you are like most property owners, you might lose sleep at night over things like difficult tenants and empty units that you need to fill. Fortunately, by doing something as simple as upgrading your property management software, you might be able to significantly reduce your workload. Here are two ways new property management software could make your job easier:

1: Allowing Tenants to Complete Rental Paperwork Online

You might be used to that paperwork and filing system, but those paper documents might cause more trouble than they solve. In addition to requiring a manager to assist potential tenants with the paperwork process, paper documents can be lost, damaged, or filled out incorrectly. Fortunately, some property management programs are cloud-based, allowing tenants to complete paperwork online in their free time. Here are a few huge benefits to a program that offers online rental applications:

  • Required Questions: Don't risk having tenants miss entire sections of paperwork. Online paperwork can be designed to pop up an error message if a tenant skips a section or enters bogus information. This feature might help you to improve the quality of your paperwork, in case you ever have to file a lawsuit. Also, since paperwork is stored online, you can catalog and reference contracts easily.  
  • Rent Around the Clock: Instead of relying on employees to meet potential tenants at the office and take care of paperwork, online property management software can allow you to receive rent around the clock. That means that your rental office will be essentially open 24/7, which might improve your occupancy.  
  • Vacancy Alerts for Managers: Since tenants can fill out paperwork all day and all night, you might be able to easily track current occupancy rates and learn about new vacancies.    

Before you choose a new property management program, ask if you can use the software on a trial basis. That way, you might be able to see whether or not the system is easy to use and if it helps you to accomplish your management goals.  

2: Help You Screen For Terrible Tenants

Nothing is worse than renting one of your best units to a few destructive tenants. In addition to cringing every time you enter the apartment and see another broken appliance or dented wall, you might also find yourself in more confrontational situations than you like. Fortunately, some property management software uses key information from rental applications to automatically screen for bad tenants. Here are a few pieces of data that might disqualify someone from renting from you:

  • Credit Scores: That credit score might not seem relevant to the rental process, but a person's financial history can actually say a lot about them. If that potential tenant has a problem with paying late or has a longstanding history with collections companies, it might be a sign that they won't pay their rent on time. 
  • Employment: You can also use your rental application to learn more about a person's line of work. This information might help you to understand their schedule, their potential budget, and their general level of responsibility. For example, a tenant who has been to college and who works at an engineering firm might make a better tenant than someone who has a rough time holding down an hourly job at a fast food establishment. 
  • Rental History: Screening programs can also check for prior evictions so that you don't rent to someone who was evicted from their last place.

If you are worried about the legalities of screening tenants based on their credit score or employment history, you shouldn't be. The law states that landlords can screen for tenants using whatever criteria they wish, as long as it is used in a non-discriminatory manner. Fortunately, if screening is a built-in part of your online rental application, every tenant will be screened for problems—which might protect you from discrimination lawsuits. 

By upgrading your property management software, you might be able to improve tenant satisfaction, while enjoying a little more free time of your own. For more information, go to sites that offer trials of property management software and see if the software can help improve your business.