Optimize Your Property Management Workflow
When Running a Long-Term Real Estate Investment Business, Workflows Must be Clear
By Kori Covrigaru
Between contractors prepping the rental, marketing the property, tenant communications, and everything in between, it is easy for workflows and processes to become muddied. There are numerous people, resources, and steps to each process, but it is possible to streamline your processes and increase your profit.
PlanOmatic worked with a client who had an issue during renovations. His contractors could not get access to the properties. This issue delayed projects, causing a massive income loss through added days on the market.
PlanOlabs looked at their data and found that the access issues were in the same region. They were within the same zip code and managed by one individual. Once they learned that, they solved the problem and reduced the access issues from 30% to less than 10% of the time.
How can you increase your profits through optimized workflows?
Use the Data to Make Informed Decisions
When running a long-term rental business, you have goals but need a real community to help you understand how to meet those goals.
What processes are your competitors utilizing that you are not?
Having data at your fingertips allows you to make informed decisions for your business. “Big clients are getting bigger with aspirational goals to scale,” said Tim Rose, Director of PlanOlabs, as he explained that they meet these goals through competitor data provided by PlanOlabs.
Automate Rental Listing Marketing
Automate your marketing materials. Work with a photography company specializing in rental listing photography. With PlanOmatic, in one appointment, the photos and assets are taken for the listing photography, floor plans, and 3D walkthroughs all at once.
After the appointment is complete, a simple API integration allows the rest of the process to automate.
Simplified Leasing Process
Today’s renter wants ease. With tools like Zillow Rental Manager or Apartments.com Property Management Tools, you can screen potential tenants, approve them, and have them sign a lease online.
With the popularity of 3D virtual walkthroughs, fewer tenants insist on in-person walkthroughs, so this online experience provides a seamless transition from prospect to tenant.
Set up Online Payments
Once a tenant has signed a lease, they want the seamless experience to continue. Offer online payments, so tenants can automate their bill payments, and you do not need to wait for checks to arrive. Instead, watch your bank account grow.
Digital Maintenance Tickets
Continue the seamless experience with digital maintenance tickets. Manage maintenance requests from a dashboard. Tenants can go online and submit a ticket with photos and then stay in the loop to know when the repair will be completed.
Property managers can easily manage multiple properties, tenants, and maintenance tickets from a single dashboard.
Perform Competitive Analysis
When you have a single-family rental business, you have big goals: large portfolios, new builds, and a seamless operation. But to reach those goals, you need to understand what your competitors are doing.
“This is a common threshold where they start to feel pain. How are we going to meet these ambitious goals? How do we lay out a solid workflow or process foundation? We use our data, ask vendors, and go to our other clients, so we can help them come up with some answers,” Rose said.
Optimize Your Property Management Workflow
Many property management marketing departments have a workflow process as in the BEFORE column, which is 11 steps long. After optimizing your workflow, it can be trimmed down to three steps through automation.
Rose explains how PlanOlabs supports property management companies in optimizing workflows. “What is the objective of the process you are looking to refine? Look at who is responsible for that piece of the process. Next, look at handoffs. When one person is done with their part of the process, how do they hand it off to the next person in line? Once we understand who is part of the process and when those handoffs happen, we can look at the task. What can be automated?”
Using tech-driven solutions reduces manual effort, increases profit, and improves tenant satisfaction.
Everyone wins.
