(upbeat music)
- Hey, how's it going?
This is Seth.
In this video, I wanna talk to you about something
that I see a lot of landlords doing it wrong,
and it really doesn't need to be this way.
It's actually really, really simple to fix this problem.
Something that I've always prided myself on
is being very, very easy to work with.
For example, it should be really easy
for people to pay me when they need to pay me.
I shouldn't throw up obstacles,
require them to only pay in cash.
It just needs to be convenient.
If they wanna pay by credit card,
they should be able to do that.
If they wanna pay by ACH,
they should be able to do that too.
Even if I have to pay a little bit of money
in order for them to do that
in the form of convenience fees or anything like that,
I should do that, and I should price that
into the cost of my rent, so that it's easy for them.
Easy is the bottom line,
and that's what we're going for.
We don't wanna make things harder than they need to be.
There's just no reason for that.
Or things like communicating with me,
if people have to ask questions and get answers on things,
it shouldn't be hard to do that.
Or if people wanted to get information
on one of the properties I have for sale,
all that information should be readily available.
I should have great pictures.
Really, they shouldn't have to ask anything,
cause all the information is there.
And I know like, when I was in college,
for example, I was one of four guys renting a house
from a local landlord, and it was crazy
how hard he made it for us to communicate with him
and to send him payments.
I mean, it was kind of ridiculous,
but that was just the norm.
That was how people did things 15 years ago.
In this day and age, we have incredible technology
that makes it 100 times more convenient
than it used to be,
but I still see people doing the same thing,
making it just as hard for their tenants
to get answers to questions, to communicate,
to send payments, to do all this stuff.
It just doesn't have to be that way.
There's actually a ton of super helpful
property management software solutions out there,
and as a real estate investor and blogger,
I've had the benefit of seeing
how most of these work from the inside.
I've actually been able to get into the system
and see just how much easier it is
for people to submit applications,
put together property listings,
run background and credit checks, process monthly payments,
I mean it can be push button simple.
I don't know why everybody isn't using
one of these software solutions out there,
because a lot of them are free,
and even the ones that are paid, are really inexpensive.
I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer value proposition
that they're bringing to the table.
But something I still mysteriously have seen missing
from a lot of these software solutions is the availability
of a mobile app.
So, the ability to pull up the software
on your phone with just an app
on your home screen and do everything from that app.
And the reason I'm a little mystified by this
is because all of these property management
software solutions are designed to be mobile-friendly,
so if you can actually get to the website,
it's super easy to navigate around
and find everything you need from your phone.
However, there's only a couple of 'em out there
that have actually gone through the motions
of putting together an app
so that you don't have to open your browser
and go search for the website, and login.
It's just one tap on your screen
from the app on your phone.
And as of 2019 the only companies I know of
that are doing this are TenantCloud and Buildium,
and from what I know of Buildium,
that's actually one that I haven't spent a ton of time in,
but that's generally designed for larger property managers
who are managing multi-family properties
whereas TenantCloud is a little bit more versatile
and can be used for those multi-family facilities
or single-family houses,
no matter what your situation is.
And TenantCloud is also designed
not just for property managers,
but also for property owners,
if they want to stay in touch with their property managers
and for tenants, and for maintenance technicians,
which means it's really easy for everybody
in the process to have their own TenantCloud account,
access it through the app,
send messages back and forth, process payments,
all that stuff from their mobile device
without ever having to sit down at a desktop computer
if they don't want to.
Of course, you can, if that's what you prefer,
but it's just as easy,
if not easier to do it from your phone,
if that's the way you prefer to do it.
Funny thing is, because they have an app available
and because they make it easy,
over 60% of all tenants always use the app,
they don't use it on their desktop computer
and it just goes to show that
if you make it easy for people,
they're gonna choose that easy option.
And for whatever reason,
TenantCloud seems to be the only one
that gets this and is doing that.
So it just begs the question,
if there's an easier way to do it,
why not take the path of least resistance?
Why not give your tenants a way to do things
the way that they would prefer to do them anyway?
Mobile apps are actually a really big deal.
There's statistics saying that 96% of Facebook users
use Facebook from the app on their phone.
And even looking more specifically
at the real estate industry,
if we look at sites like Airbnb,
did you know that half of the traffic they get
comes almost exclusively through the mobile app,
which by the way is a very, very well-designed app.
And I think that's part of what makes it so easy.
If the app is garbage,
then it's not really gonna be that helpful.
But if it's a well-designed,
it makes all the difference in the world
in making the user's experience better.
If you were to make your tenants lives easier,
do you think you might find better tenants?
Maybe tenants who stick around for longer
and make your business more stable?
I don't know, but I would think
it's probably worth exploring that option,
especially since it's so easily and readily available.
And guess what?
TenantCloud does have a free version of their service
that you can use so it doesn't have to cost you anything.
I mean I'm not really sure
why you wouldn't be exploring this,
if you're not already doing something like TenantCloud.
Then again, I think all those property management softwares
out there are worth something and they bring
a lot of vide to the table, but again,
for whatever reason on this mobile app issue,
I don't know why,
but TenantCloud seems to be the only one
that's making that available for the masses.
If you haven't heard of TenantCloud,
I'd encourage you to check it out,
I've spent a little bit of time
playing around with their app.
I was pretty impressed with it,
I just thought it was really cool
how they made it super easy for tenants and landlords
and property managers and all these people
to very easily communicate with each other.
No more lost emails in your inbox
or voicemails that don't get answered,
when it's literally just as simple
as something like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp
or even sending a text.
I mean, that's how easy it is to handle
this kind of communication with something like TenantCloud.
So, if you're a property manager
or just a rental property owner,
I think it's worth checking out.
And if you do have any experience with TenantCloud,
or for that matter, any of the other
property management solutions out there,
feel free to leave a comment beneath this video
and let me know your thoughts about it.
Have you been impressed?
Have you enjoyed using the service?
Do you think they're delivering
in all the possible ways they could?
I think as time goes on,
we're gonna see better and better options
available in this space.
And I think it's just really exciting
and cool to see where the world is going
for this particular industry.
So, thanks for watching, see ya next time.