Real estate agents are usually responsible for a great number of tasks relating to the management, maintenance, and monitoring of all manner and sizes of properties. Moreover, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, stepping out to monitor property-related issues may not be an option for some real estate agents.
In this article, we will explore the benefits and features of property management software that can help real estate agents improve their efficiency.
What is property management?
Property management refers to real-estate related activities ranging from monitoring the health of a building or physical property to the advertising, repair, and maintenance of facilities, and more.
Benefits of using software for property management
Some cloud-based property management software provides solutions to streamline the workflow of companies. The adoption of such tools could help companies remotely monitor both client-facing tasks —such as checking the status of room or property reservations for guests and tracking payments— and back-office activities —like the management of promotional activities, and monitoring sales and staff performance. In addition, it could help you with other tasks ranging from coordinating guest services and connecting with tenants via in-house communication portals like private branch exchange (PBX) to promoting your services, and more. Here, we list a few benefits of property management solutions for real estate agents.
Simplifies property asset management
Over time, household equipment and furniture often require maintenance and repair services due to deterioration caused by regular use. With property management solutions, real estate agents could cater to maintenance issues by sending reminders and notifications. Some of these solutions could also help them conveniently track the maintenance process and progress status by allowing real estate agents to communicate with tenants through chatbots, an application that enables users to chat online using text messages, voice messages, and other graphics in real-time.
Tracks rent payments
At times, it can get challenging to monitor rent payments, particularly if there is a large volume of such payments to track. Property management tools could help real estate agents check if they have received payments on time, and if not, can help notify tenants about late payments, as well as any late fees that could be applicable. Additionally, in case of payment details are not updated in the database, such solutions could potentially notify both the real estate agent and tenant in question.
Enables data-driven decisions
Whether your company is engaged in managing one property space or a wide range of properties —including multi-storey houses and commercial spaces— catering to their requirements and keeping track of tenant details can become challenging. Property management software could help companies store important tenant details and documents in a secure database. This could enable real estate managers to make data-driven decisions about property leasing, tenant screening, and releasing related advertisements.
Aids in prompt and convenient communication
In order to align with the requirements of customers, real estate agents may be well-served by adopting effective tools that allow for prompt communication. Property management solutions could help real estate agents conveniently communicate with tenants by sending messages and emails in bulk to notify them about rental payments, repair and maintenance status, and share important documents, audio, and video files.
Provides flexible data storage solutions
Often, managing and storing paperwork related to rent, property assets, quality assurance, and financials can be a tough task. With some cloud-based property management solutions, real estate agents could conveniently store data related to rental financials, asset management, and more on the cloud, and access them from most devices.
Accessible via application programming interfaces (APIs)
Most cloud-based property management software can be integrated with other operating platforms via APIs. With this feature, these solutions could help configure applications that aid companies in notifying tenants about important updates by pre-scheduling emails pertaining to invoice reminders and automating fees collection.
Which property management software to choose?
With a range of solutions available, it can be difficult to decide which property management software would be suitable for your company. In order to help you make an informed decision, we will now look at some features that can be kept in mind while choosing the ideal property management software for your needs.
Password-protected security
At times, managing and securing tenant data manually in spreadsheets and documents can get challenging. Companies should consider choosing software that helps them automate the task of storing data and using authentication features to protect it. With password-protected authentication features, companies can aim to prevent data breaches and secure important tenant data.
Integration platforms
Company operations can be interrupted if applications and software are not well-configured. This could result in a delay in performing tasks and the inability to meet important deadlines. Considering this, companies should ideally opt for software solutions that enable integration with existing databases and payment apps.
Secure payment platform
Data security continues to remain a primary concern among most companies. With numerous property management solutions to choose from, companies should keep an eye out for features that enable encryption of data and messages to protect the sensitive financial information of users. In addition, these tools could help in ensuring payment transaction security with the use of one-time passwords (OTPs). Security protocols such as firewalls provided by such tools could also help companies prevent data theft.
Advanced booking assistance
One of the first steps while booking a property is to check if it meets the requirements of potential tenants. To help facilitate this, real estate agents should look for tools that can offer features that provide support for website visitors to fill in their personal information and apply relevant search filters. This can enable prospective tenants to conveniently browse through properties that cater to their requirements and help them make a well-informed purchase or booking decision. Some of these tools also allow companies to integrate booking dates with their calendars, helping them manage reservation tasks better.
In conclusion
Overall, property management software is a type of customer relationship management (CRM) software that offers diverse features and tools to track and automate property-related tasks. With the implementation of property management software, real estate agents could sort out their to-do lists and prioritise tasks with deadlines. It could also help companies keep track of the maintenance of facilities and property assets used by clients, as well as better understand their requirements.