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Being a property manager is basically like walking into a hurricane every day.
You get sucked into a barrage of emails, phone calls and seemingly never-ending emergencies that pull you away and eat up precious hours in your day. There are better ways to manage your time, but it will take some changes to the way you manage your day.
First, use technology to free up time through systemisation and automation. A lot of what you do is repetitive and can be replicated through software.
There are a multitude of programs that can carve out time for you by consistently and accurately taking on some of your less-complex tasks, freeing you up to build better relationships with your customers.
Managing arrears: There are programs that can send out daily reminders to your tenants politely advising how much they are in arrears, with increasing pressure as they get towards 14 days. You can still make phone calls, but 80 per cent of the work can be done by the software.
Open for Inspection: These programs will answer all queries about when the property is open, make potential tenant bookings and send them rental applications after the inspection. All you have to do is open up the property.
Maintenance requests: Let technology do all of the follow-up that comes with managing a tenant maintenance request. Not only will it follow up tenants and tradespeople, but it keeps a central record of all communications so you can always know where each property’s request stands.
Key Management: Why rummage around in the key draw when you can take a photo of each key and tag it to each property, then log it out when it’s needed? Some applications also have scanners and GPS tracking on your keys. The sophistication of the software you need in your business depends how often your keys go MIA.
Inspections: Digital ingoing/ outgoing and routing inspections are a huge time-saver – as are video reports. The better inspection tools will even have route optimisation for your inspections and automatically send out inspection time letters to your tenants.
Lease Renewals: These happen every year – well, they should, so it’s essential you have an automated system that alerts you when they are due, creates them and uses a CMA to estimate the rental increase you suggest to your landlord.
There is a huge array of software systems available that can help modernise and streamline your business. You need to do your research and explore the solutions until you find something that fits with your business. Be sure to look at things like contracts, subscription fees or cost per user fees.
Anything that integrates with your existing Trust system will offer you the greatest benefit as it eliminates any duplication of information.
A new property management software offering from PM Assistant is available that can help drive efficiency in your business.
Technology is your friend. It will save you time, create huge efficiencies and consistently deliver a great result for your customers.
Penelope Valentine is national sales manager for property management software solution PM Assistant, which streamlines many of the daily tasks faced by property managers including receiving and responding to maintenance issues, scheduling inspections and managing arrears.
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