Here are 8 reasons to manage rental maintenance requests with property management software to improve communication between landlords and tenants.
By Eli Secor
One of the most stressful parts of being a landlord is getting a midnight call or text about a repair that’s needed. Even when it isn’t urgent, there’s still the burden of carrying the knowledge that a problem needs to be solved.
Managing rental-maintenance requests using property management software creates one portal where tenants and landlords alike can communicate and coordinate property repairs and upkeep, whether they be routine or an urgent problem.
With the right property management tool, rental-property maintenance can become far more efficient for landlords. You can keep all documents and records of rental-maintenance requests in one place, which makes progress-tracking and communication easy.
Here are some of the reasons you should use property management software to manage rental-maintenance requests:
1. 24/7 Maintenance Coordination
Some property management tools such as Hemlane give you access to a 24/7 repair coordinator that can handle your middle-of-the-night emergencies. The coordinator is responsible for diagnosing and troubleshooting rental-maintenance requests, scheduling dispatch, and coordinating with your service professionals and renters.
2. Cost Efficiency
Property management software makes it unnecessary for many landlords to hire a property manager because it makes tasks such as advertising, screening, rent collection, and maintenance management efficient and easy. Whether you want to use these tools to make your life easier, or pick one that takes most duties off your shoulders, property management software offers you huge savings over hiring a traditional property manager.
3. Communication
A property management platform makes it easier to communicate with all necessary parties. It puts all the messages between you and your tenant together in one place, where it is easy to reference. Often you can loop in your chosen service provider (such as a plumber, repair person or electrician) so that you can share information and schedule visits without a lot of back and forth. Some tools also have a mobile app so you, your tenants, and your vendors can track progress on the go.
4. Photos and Videos
When it comes to communicating about repairs, every bit of information you have helps you sort out the problem most effectively. Many property management software tools allow users to share photos and/or videos related to the repair job, making it easy for everyone to know the problem and track the progress of repair work.
5. Calendar
Property management software allows you to keep track of important tasks, monitor progress, and store related notes and documents. Landlords can set reminders for routine maintenance and even schedule time-insensitive repairs. With TenantCloud, for instance, you can document priority levels, due dates, and more, and share them with the appropriate parties.
6. Rental Maintenance Request Dashboard
Many tools have an intuitive maintenance dashboard that helps managers track outstanding and completed work. For example, in RentRedi, landlords can view a timeline of activity on all rental-maintenance requests in the maintenance-request dashboard. They can view the status of each maintenance request.
Renters also receive status updates automatically via email and text. They can add more detail about the maintenance issue and provide their availability.
7. Accounting
Tax season can be challenging, especially if you have to scramble around trying to find paper receipts and piece together all rental incomes. With a property management tool, you can easily upload invoices and receipts for individual maintenance tasks.
Landlords and property managers can create work orders and track expenses associated with a repair. Many property management tools allow you to assign expenses to individual units and/or renters. Some platforms can also pull together repair bills, other expenses, and online rent payments that you receive.
8. Vendor Integration
Along with landlords and renters, vendors or service providers also participate in the rental-property maintenance process. With a property management software tool, you can bring your service providers into the system. This speeds up communication and streamlines maintenance tasks. Many of these tools allow landlords to create work orders, receive bids, and pay vendors all from within the platform.
Managing Rental Maintenance Requests: Takeaways
Using a property management software platform makes managing maintenance on rental property easy, fast, and cost-effective. These software products offer tools that help tenants send rental maintenance requests to their landlords. All communication can happen on the platform, including the exchange of photos and videos.
In some cases, you can also include the service providers that do the repair work. This makes coordination easy and quick. Many tools allow you to attach receipts and bills. They associate all records with individual tenants and their rental units, making record-keeping and evaluating both tenant and unit easy.
About the author:
Eli Secor started LandlordGurus.com with longtime friend and fellow landlord Chris Lee. After many a discussion about how to manage various tricky rental-property issues, they decided to share their experiences and expertise with other independent landlords. Along the way they are finding new answers and new tools, which they also share.