As a rental property owner, you might find yourself wondering whether you should hire a property manager. At first, it might seem like outsourcing your residential property management will just eat into profits, as you’ll need to start paying a property manager salary. But when a property manager is equipped with the right tools, you’ll not only save yourself tons of time, you might actually be able to increase your rental income.
How to Hire a Property Manager & Use Property Management Software for Better Rental Property Management
What Does a Property Manager Do -- and Cost?
A professional property manager oversees the day-to-day operations of rental properties for a fee. According to Zillow, that fee is typically 7-10% of the monthly rent. Essentially, a property manager will handle the operations of your rental property and take over all of the stress associated with it.
A residential property manager is usually responsible for filling vacancies by publishing online listings, managing rental showings, meeting and qualifying prospective tenants, reviewing applicants, and overseeing the leasing process once quality tenants have been identified. They’ll also field all of the time-consuming questions and back-and-forth communications with prospective tenants.
Today, all of these tasks and interruptions are handled by you. But imagine what you could do if you had that time back. You could invest in finding and buying new rental properties, or implementing upgrades and enhancements to your current properties that let you increase your rent. Maybe you’d rather use the time to focus on other strategic projects and priorities? Or maybe you’d just spend more time relaxing, or with family. This is where hiring a property manager or property management company can change your life.
For the Best ROI, Equip Them with Technology
To get the most ROI from your property manager, you need to arm them with the right tools to do their job efficiently and effectively. Look for tenant lead software that lets property managers automate common tasks, maintain compliance with federal regulations, and track all information about their tenant leads in one place. Some of the features that you’ll want to look for include:
- Integrations with popular online listings sites like Zillow and Trulia to track ad performance across channels
- Consistent tenant screening questions that are customizable to fit your needs
- Automated responses to tenant lead inquiries, as well as alerts and reminders for your property manager
- An online tenant showing scheduler that allows prospective tenants to book and confirm their own appointments
- An electronic lockbox or codebox to enable secure, no-contact automated showings that won’t take up your property manager’s time
- Intuitive dashboards and reports, including property owner reports so you have ready access to all the information you need
- Anti-fraud detection, such as ID verification, device fingerprinting, online listing watermarks and a database of known scammers to blocklist
- Integrations with commonly-used property management software, including Buildium, Rent Manager, AppFolio and more
- Responsive, US-based tech support
But Is Tenant Lead Software Really Worth the Expense?
It’s true that tenant lead software is another expense, but the additional efficiencies that it creates will deliver a positive return on your investment. First, by hiring a property manager, you save yourself the time and aggravation of managing your rental property and its prospective tenants. That frees you up to operate more rental units, which opens additional lines of revenue, or invest in growing your business...or maybe just reclaim your personal life.
Then, by adding tenant lead software, you make your property manager more efficient, so they can manage more of your properties or handle more projects, without getting bogged down in repetitive tasks or endless interruptions. Tenant Turner users report saving 10-15 hours per week for each property manager, and that they have reduced their phone calls by 70-90%.
Then, by making your property manager more effective, you can keep your staff lean and your overhead low. In fact, Richard Henry of Druid City Properties says that with Tenant Turner, “We are able to manage 400 units with just one leasing manager...We lease properties faster with much less labor.”
And as for the cost? Tina Martin, Property Manager at Advance Realty, had this to say:
“We recently tested a lower price competitor and found that Tenant Turner is definitely the best value!”
Are you ready to learn more about how Tenant Turner can help you make the most of your new property manager?
