Key Takeaways
- Vacant units are costly, and property management software can help landlords fill them faster by streamlining key processes.
- Tools like listing syndication, digital lease signing, and online document storage significantly cut down on time and effort during tenant turnover.
- Leveraging property management software is a smart move for landlords looking to minimize vacancy and grow a more profitable, well-run rental business.
How To Fill Units Quicker Using Property Management Software
The worst money drain for property managers? Vacant units.
Bills don’t stop flooding in just because your property is empty. Maintaining empty units without any kind of rent payments can weigh on landlords very quickly, especially those with growing portfolios. Of course, vacancies are a normal part of the rental business, but the fewer, the better. So, how can you minimize tenant turnover, fill units faster, and maximize profits?
There’s a plethora of modern solutions at your fingertips, ready to assist you at every turn. Property management software, for example, is a powerful all-in-one option that simplifies virtually every part of the rental business—including filling units and keeping them that way.
Features like advertising tools, digital documents, online maintenance management, and automated reminders help landlords make management as expedient and efficient as possible. It’s important to move quickly, but it’s just as important to do things right the first time around.
Property management software can ensure you do things properly and quickly, cutting your wasted time down to a minimum. Let’s dive into exactly why this tool works so well.
[cta_blog url="https://auth.innago.com/signup" target="_blank" title="Try Innago, It's Free"]Rental Advertising Tools
To fill your units fast, you need to advertise effectively and optimally. This means you’ll have to post your listing on a wide range of realty and rental websites, which can eat up valuable time.
Most property management software offer rental advertising tools to make this process much easier. You’ll only have to create a single listing, then the software will syndicate your post to a number of selected platforms with a single click. Make sure that key sites are included in your software’s listing syndication, such as Apartments.com, Zillow, and Zumper.
By using listing syndication, you can reach a wider pool of potential tenants with ease. Maximizing your property’s exposure is one of the best ways to work towards filling your units, and property management software makes it easier than ever before.
This syndication will also ensure that your advertisements are uniform across all websites. Reducing these errors both enhances your professionalism and minimizes the odds of misrepresenting your properties. You’ll spend less time answering questions and worrying about typos, and more time actually running your business.
Tenant Screening
You won’t retain great tenants if you don’t have good ones from the start. So, to reduce turnover, it’s vital that you find the right long-term renters. At the very least, you should run credit, background, eviction, and criminal history checks on each applicant you’re considering. You want to get the fullest picture possible to get a good idea of the type of renter they’d be. Generally, the higher the tenant quality, the lower the tenant turnover.
Plus, more landlords have recently begun adding income verification to their tenant screening reports. It’s essentially a way to double-check that your tenants have the steady stream of income they claim. Some software (Innago included), offer this as an option with their built-in tenant screening services. It’s just another way for property managers to ensure they’re getting the best tenants possible.
Property management software will also help you keep your applicants organized, making it even easier to weigh your potential tenants next to one another. Despite all of this, it’s still possible that the occasional less-than-stellar tenant might slip through the cracks, but these measures do the best possible job of lowering those chances.
Ultimately, tenant screening features reduce turnover because great tenants pay rent on time and in full, communicate proactively, and don’t damage property. The less time you spend tracking down late payments or working on property damage, the more time you can spend on tasks like advertising and enhancing your property.
Online Lease Signing
The paperwork aspect of filling vacancies is often the part that drags on the longest. Waiting days for papers, appointments, and signatures can drag the process for much longer than necessary (thus forcing you to lose even more valuable income). Online lease signing relieves this headache.
Property management software makes signing a lease easy and convenient. Instead of waiting around for signatures via mail and appointments, tenants and landlords can sign documents from anywhere, anytime.
Plus, you’ll have access to reusable lease templates through your platform. Rather than scouring online for the right template or making your own from scratch, you can use lease templates that are compliant with your state’s specific laws. For smaller and larger portfolios alike, hundreds of hours can be saved when using templates.
Storing your lease agreements in the cloud is a good idea, as paper copies are easy to misplace or lose entirely. Most standard solutions support online document management, which helps landlords keep everything in a centralized location. Critical documents should be readily accessible to you and tenants/applicants at a moment’s notice, and software facilitates this with ease.
And it’s not just about leases. Rental applications can go straight from a tenants’ laptop to submission. When crucial documents can be accessed and stored online, it saves everyone valuable time and effort. It truly makes all the difference in the busy world we live in.
Online Maintenance Management
Think of maintenance management as tenant retention. It’s one of the most routine (and tiresome) parts of being a landlord, but when it comes to keeping quality tenants, it’s vital. Being on top of your property’s maintenance improves your tenant’s experience, making them more likely to stay long-term.
Property management software can simplify this too. Rather than relying on phone calls and emails, your tenants can submit maintenance requests through their resident portal. There, they can add descriptions, photos, and videos of the issue at hand. This will create a work order, which you can then assign to employees or vendors and track accordingly throughout the process.
When you tend to maintenance issues quickly, it minimizes the potential damage to your property. The longer a leak goes unattended, for example, the more water damage you’ll have to contend with down the road. Property management software makes swift work of sorting and sending maintenance requests through the right channels for you. If you keep your units in good condition and stay on top of maintenance, it’ll make them infinitely easier to fill.
On most platforms, you can also set up automated reminders. These are helpful in multiple situations, including when a tenant is about to move out. If you have a reminder that immediately provides a checklist of things you need to do to clean and prepare the unit, you’ll reduce turnover. Little things add up to big things.
Fill Units Faster with Innago for Free
Innago is an all-in-one platform used by property management companies, real estate investors, and individual landlords alike. We’ve worked hard to ensure our interface is user-friendly for both landlords and tenants, because we know your tenants’ experience with their rent collection platform matters to your retention and bottom line, too.
Unlike other options such as Landlord Studio or TurboTenant, our pricing is completely transparent: we’re really free for landlords. There are no paywalls or plans with Innago—users get access to our comprehensive platform, full of a variety of features that simplify everyday rental property operations.
Sounding good?
Conclusion
Filling units quickly is a priority for every landlord. Property management software has the power to expedite the leasing process and help you fill units with quality tenants. Gone are the days of empty units making a dent in your hard-earned income.
Advertising tools, digital documents, online maintenance management, and tenant screening ensure you save time while taking care of everything you need to reduce turnover. Utilizing every aspect of property management software is a great first step for landlords looking to level-up their business.
FAQs
What are the most popular property management software?
The overall most popular property management software companies in the industry include options like AppFolio, Buildium, and Yardi. However, these platforms are often best suited for large portfolios and aren’t always cost-effective for the average property owner. Innago is one of the most popular property management software currently on the market for small- to medium-sized portfolios due to its free full feature set.
What is the best PMS software?
The best PMS software simplifies payment processes, offers customizable workflows, and organizes your rental business. Innago is the best PMS for landlords of all sizes, as its tools and customer support are unmatched.
Is there a free property management software?
Yes—Innago! It’s a free software that covers all the essential needs of a rental property management business.
