Let’s be honest – managing multiple rental properties is not an easy task. You have to worry about collecting the rent, managing your internal bookkeeping, maintaining the property (and/or paying the services you use to do that), and building a relationship with your tenants. Not to mention, with a vacancy your workload doubles as you rush to prepare your empty property for new renters. Whether you have a handful of rental properties or twenty, these four rental property tools will simplify your management process.
- Online Tenant Screening and Rental Applications
When it comes to processing new rental applicants, you know that speed is necessary. You don’t have the time to wait a week for a tenant screening report to process. Picking an online tenant screening service will not only ensure you get the report as soon as possible, but will make it easier for your applicants to submit their rental application information. - Rental Vacancy Advertising Tools
As you know, posting a rental listing can eat up a significant amount of your time. While there are a lot of free listing websites available, sites like Craigslist rely on frequent posting to obtain optimal visibility. Unless you’re relying on property management software to post your ads for you automatically, take the time to manually post on the websites you know and trust after you check your market’s conditions. Rentometer.com can also assist you figuring out the right rent amount to charge for your property. - Online Rent Collection
While collecting rent manually each month might be a big part of your routine, consider incorporating an online rent collection service into your management procedures. By giving your tenants the option to pay their rent online, it reduces the amount of time you use collecting the rent checks and processing them at your bank. With online rent collection, rental payments will be transferred directly into your bank account, oftentimes at no cost to you. - Property Management Software
If you manage more than 10 rental properties on your own, you might want to invest in online property management software. With tools like full accounting, instant rental vacancy posting to 20+ advertising sites, tenant portals and automatic rental (ACH) payments, you can easily manage each of your rental properties in one online platform. Click here to get a free 2-week trial of CICTotal Manager™, intuitive property management software.
Although these four rental property tools scrape the surface on how you can simplify your management process, they can free up a significant amount of your time without adding a lot of costs to your business. Whether you choose to invest your newfound time back into your properties or towards your personal projects and family, these tools can make managing your rental properties a lot less stressful. Enjoy!
