By Peter Lamandre, Better by Design Real Estate, Scranton, PA

Whether your portfolio is made up of large complexes or scattered smaller units, performing unit and site inspections is an important value-added service that a property management firm provides to their clients. It is also one of the more time consuming aspects of our daily jobs. Performing the inspections requires scheduling with tenants, documenting observations, and follow-up on deficient items. It is also crucial to have the historic inspections readily available to reference changes in conditions.

Over the years my firm has tried numerous variations on a rather routine process; from the traditional pen and clipboard documenting observations on standard forms to utilizing digital cameras and even portable video.

Recently we have been testing and are just rolling out a new process for conducting inspections. A fully digital and paperless inspection process; allowing for a swift method to memorialize observations by following a consistent process.

With the advent and proliferation of smartphones and tablets in the marketplace this process is becoming more streamlined. As an avid iPhone user the apps we use are iPhone/iPad based. However searching though your application marketplace I am sure you can locate apps for windows and android based devices as well.

A few helpful apps that you may want to look are:

Tap Inspect. Tap inspect is a free app that allows you to customize the inspection process and deliver customized reports directly to your client from the field. You can include photos of the property and comment on your observations. The report is then transferred to a PDF and archived on their website. The reports are branded with your logo and name for identification. The app is text driven with a vast library of boilerplate comments. The app is free however there are pricing plans for the delivery and archiving of the reports.

Field Agent. Field agent is a free app that is more photo driven — a unique feature of Field Agent is the ability to overlay previous photos of the same area to compare condition. You also have the option of annotating the photo with comments. You can add some customization to the comments but as the saying goes “a picture is worth 1,000 words.” You also have the option of archiving your reports for future use.

Property Inspector. Property Inspector is a paid app which is a simple but effect interface — everything is rated thumbs up, OK, or thumbs down, with the ability to comment on an area and take a photo. You can customize the sections by changing the grouping of a specific area — for instance if you would rather have the lawn and grounds as a separate category or place them as a sub category of external features you can.

iInspect. iInspect is another free app. The advantage to this app is it’s extremely simple — if you are not looking for all the bells and whistles and just want to dabble in this type of inspection process it is a great way to get used to the whole concept.

All in all whatever route you take, inspections can prevent small problems from becoming big ones later on and you should have a consistent process to record and store inspections. They not only can come in handy during eviction cases, but can also help prove that you have taken reasonable care in the management of your portfolio should the need arise to defend that position such as during insurance claims.

Digitizing your reports can save you staff time and money, and help create a professional image for your firm.

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By Peter Lamandre, Better By Design Real Estate, Scranton, PA

I was out and about this week and while on the interstate I pulled behind a contractor that had a QR code on the back of their tow trailer. While I applaud them for embracing an emerging technology, it occurred to me that that may not be the best application of a QR Code. Some of you are probably wondering, “What the heck is a QR Code?”

QR code is an acronym meaning Quick Response code. It seems as though QR codes are the latest rage in advertising. But what are they? Without getting into the computer advantages of using QR codes versus standard bar codes; they are in essence a 2D bar code allowing you to pack a large amount of information in a small space.

The QR code was invented by a subsidiary of Toyota in the mid 1990s for tracking parts during shipment. The format of the code allowed machines to quickly scan and track parts on a conveyor belt and route their destination accordingly. Fast forward 20+ years and with the proliferation of smartphones with cameras what was once a way to track machine parts is now the hottest new way to pack more advertising into smaller spaces.

Would you rather see this…

FOR RENT

3 BR, 1BA ½ double $xxx/mo plus utils call for details XYZ Management, Inc maybe with a picture, a phone number perhaps a website, etc.

or

A single image that when scanned will instantly display up to 4,296 characters of text, a website with multiple photos, perhaps even a virtual tour, a ready to send SMS message requesting a showing, a ready to dial phone number, and many other virtually limitless options.

The QR shown in this post will bring you to this blog, but it could have just as easily brought you to you a map or any other website.

As mentioned above the max QR code is 4,296 characters but the larger the amount of data you store the more complex the QR becomes and the larger it needs to be printed in order for it to be scanned. If this occurs you may want to post the info to a website and link there or simply rethink the use of the QR code. The key to any technology is proper use.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that I did not think the contractor’s application was the best use. Whereas a QR on a vehicle is rather cool it was more the location & size I that took issue with; not to mention the safety issue with trying to scan while driving… YIKES!!! The fact is many areas don’t allow you to have a phone in use while driving. The QR on the vehicle was too small and would require you to be stopped directly behind the person in traffic to even be close enough to scan it and even at that distance I fear it would not be able to be scanned. It seems the only way to scan the code in this case would be to step outside your car and walk up to the trailer. It should have been bigger and in a location that could be easily visible without much trouble. I will outline a few creative & practical ways to utilize QR codes below.

Business cards

I recently just placed an order for new cards and decided to add a bit of tech on my cards by placing a QR code that links to my contact info to easily enable someone to reach me. When networking you want your business cards to stand out and what better way to start a conversation and be memorable than to have a QR code on the back of your card.

Rental Signs

Some apartment complexes print signs monthly or every time a new special of the month changes. Rather than constantly paying to have new rental signs printed with your hook you can place a QR code on the sign with a link to your latest rentals or specials.

Newspaper ads

Stand out from the crowd and place QR in your ad, linking to all your rentals with full color photos and more text then you could ever afford to place in the paper. I would be sure to place a line similar to this at the bottom of the ad. “Scan the QR code above to view our rentals or call XYZ Management, Inc @ (555) 555-5555” in case they reader doesn’t have QR.

Okay so now you know what QR codes are and you have some handy ways of using them for marketing purposes. But how do you get them?

QR Readers

Here are some QR Readers I use: Google Goggles, Beetagg, Scanlife, AT&T Scanner.

QR Generators

Google offers a QR code generator. I don’t find it that user-friendly for a basic user but it has some cool advanced features.

Kaywa offers a more user-friendly version.

There are many more but those two should get your started.

With these tips and tools you are well on your way to reduced advertising costs and showing your owners that you embrace technology. Also keep in mind your audience – QR codes clearly appeal to a more “techie” crowd and may not be well suited for all your rentals.

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You like to stay ahead of the curve technologically when it comes to your property management or real estate business, and you’re not oblivious to the growing popularity of smartphones and other mobile devices. A few of your competitors have already made the switch, allowing them to stay up to date and in contact with all aspects of their business no matter where they go. So what’s holding you back? These links will get you on the road to mobile success.

• REALTOR Magazine provides a great smartphone buyer’s guide, specifically meant for buyers within your industry.
• Blackberry has even made a point of specifically targeting the real estate industry — learn about how their products can help you improve your clients’ satisfaction.
• Which smartphones are real estate professionals using? Why are they purchasing in the first place? What features are they using? This REALTORS survey will show you how your peers are using mobile technology.
• As your business is increasingly on your smartphone, your phone’s security becomes a major concern. This video, featuring Real Data Management’s Peter Boritz, provides some tips on protecting your phone and your business.

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As smartphones rapidly flood the market, businesses are increasingly looking for ways to bring their companies and processes mobile. Androids, iPhones, and Blackberries all allow users to perform a variety of processes straight from their mobile phones by incorporating functionality that was primarily limited to PCs just a few years ago. Though there is conflicting information out there regarding the degree to which smartphones have permeated the market (Nielson estimates that one out of every two Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011 while Forrester Research estimated that only 17 percent of Americans had smartphones in September 2010), there’s still no denying that mobile is the wave of the future. It’s important to at least begin thinking about how this technology will ultimately fit into your business plan.

When it comes to apps, the sky’s the limit. You can build an app that will allow potential tenants to search your rental listings. Or, alternatively, you can build an app for tenants (this makes more sense for larger property management companies) to communicate with you, find information, file requests, or even make payments. According to BusinessInsider.com, when deciding to build an app, it’s important to consider three main questions:

1. What is the key benefit I want users to get from using this app?
2. What other apps exist that are competitive and why will mine be different?
3. What is this app going to do for my business?

For some ideas on how property managers are already using apps, Software Advice published this article that is worthy of a look. If you decide the time is right to bring apps into your property management business, following are some options to consider.

Proprietary Apps
If you decide to build an app for your company, you can choose between building it yourself or hiring a developer to take care of it for you (which can get expensive, ranging anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 on average). Since different smartphones use different app architecture, you will then decide if you want to build for just one type of phone (an iPhone, for example) or build a few different versions for different smartphone platforms.

If you’re feeling ambitious and want to try building your own smartphone app, some development tools on the web can help. Google offers App Developer (now in beta) for building Android phone apps. Designed for small business owners, Sweb Apps helps you build your own iPhone apps, no programming knowledge necessary (some fees do apply). Blackberry apps are a bit more complicated, but if you’re up to the challenge, a basic tutorial can be found here.

Remember, once you’ve built your app, you’ll need to submit it to the appropriate app provider for consumer download.

Second-party app
If building your own app sounds a bit overwhelming, you can also make use of pre-existing apps to market your own rental listings. The following listing sites are currently using apps — by advertising your properties on their websites your units will turn up in search results when app users search rental listings on their smartphones.

• Apartments.com
• MyNewPlace.com
• Rent.com
• Rentals.com
• Zillow.com

Still not sure where you stand on apps? Check out this Wall Street Journal article about how smartphone apps can improve your business. Be sure to let us know how apps are working for you by leaving a comment below.

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If you’re overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done at your property management company, hiring additional staff is a logical place to start. Before you rush out and post a Craigslist ad, consider the type of work that’s really drowning you — is it maintenance work and showing units to potential tenants, or more administrative type work? The links below will help deal with the extra workload, whether that includes finding the right employee or the right software application for the jobs at hand.

• Entrepreneur.com weighs in on How to Decide When to Hire an Employee.
• If you are a small property management shop or an individual looking to grow your business by adding your first employees, this article from the Wall Street Journal is a great place to start.
• You’ve already decided that software can help save you the time you need by streamlining your more administrative type tasks. But should you be looking for web-based or installed software? 37Signals makes a case for web-based software.
• If you think that software is your company’s best bet, we’re a bit biased towards Buildium. You can hear more about our property management software in this video. You might also want to check out the Buyer’s Guide provided by Software Advice.

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There’s no doubt about it—of all the business problems you could potentially have, being too busy is certainly not a bad option. However, being too busy can become a problem if you lack the bandwidth to stay on top of things. If you consistently find yourself putting off certain tasks or letting them fall through the cracks altogether, it’s time to make some changes. Being overloaded can result in a slip in the quality of the service you provide or oversights, both of which may guarantee you’re not so busy for long.

The obvious answer to too much work is bringing more hands on deck. But, of course, just because you’re busy doesn’t necessarily mean you have the budget to hire additional employees. Property management software may give you the extra help you need at a lower cost than an additional salary.

Multi-tasking Functionality
One of the great benefits of property management software is that it essentially acts as an office generalist. For example, hiring extra staff to take care of accounting work may alleviate that workload, but that same person can’t necessarily take on other tasks such as advertising. Modern property management software, on the other hand, handles a diverse variety of functions. It does accounting, allows tenants to make rent payments online, provides an advertising platform, runs credit and criminal checks, creates reports, and keeps records.

Cost-effective Investment
Property management software requires only a nominal investment when compared to hiring new staff and adding an additional salary to your payroll. Depending on what type of software and package you choose, you may pay an upfront fee, an annual fee, or a monthly fee.

Streamline Systems
A good property management software system will do away with redundancies. Rather than entering information multiple times for multiple purposes, you only have to do it once, saving time and effort. For example, when you pay bills through a software program, it simultaneously records the transaction for you.

Buy Time
At the end of the day, property management software essentially buys you the oh-so-precious commodity of time. Not only does it take care of calculations, notifications, and receivables for you, but it can also decrease the time required on your part to provide great customer service. By providing relevant parties with usernames and passwords they can both look up records and enter things like payments and maintenance requests by logging on to the software program (assuming you select a web-based program).

There are certain situations when taking on a new employee is required. If, for example, you need help performing property maintenance or showing units to potential tenants, no software program in the world will do the trick. However, if you simply have more administrative, accounting, or customer service work than you can handle, software may well be just the cost-effective, low-maintenance solution you’re looking for—no salary or extensive training required.

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In our previous blog post we identified some of our favorite property management focused blogs — blogs with content covering issues like landlord-tenant relations, best practices for evicting tenants, property renovations to boost property value, and other topics specifically of interest to professional property managers or landlords. While these blogs are great resources to help you stay on top of your property management game, it’s also important to remember that you’re likely also running a small business. There are literally hundreds of blogs out there focused on helping small businesses prosper and grow. Coupling up-to-date property management knowledge with the latest in business know-how is a win-win scenario for your company.

1. Dharmesh Shah’s On Startups blog is one of the most widely read business blogs on the internet. The site specifically focuses on start-up entrepreneurs — perfect if you are in the early stages of growing your property management business.

2. Small Business Trends is the most widely read small business blog on the internet with over 114,000 subscribers via the site’s RSS feed. Needless to say, it’s a great resource.

3. HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog is a fantastic resource for learning to drive new business through online initiatives like search engine optimization, blogging, and social media. Best of all, most of these inbound marketing practices are free!

4. Getting the most bang for your buck out of blogs comes from finding blogs that you feel provide useful advice that are written in a style you enjoy reading. With this in mind, check out this list of the top 100 small business blogs on the internet.

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One of the great benefits of the reality television craze is that distance education no longer has to cost any more than the price of your monthly cable television subscription. Of course this certainly does not apply to all sectors of reality television, but when it comes to house-flipping and home improvement shows on channels such as A&E, HGTV, and TLC  it certainly is possible to mix entertainment and education. Here are a few of our favorite TV shows that offer up some great business-minded take-away.

Designed to Sell, HGTV
Designed to Sell is perfect for those real estate investors who have done the hard work of renovations and are ready to flip their home. Or, for that matter, for anyone who is looking to sell their property and wants to command the best price possible. This show is inherently budget-friendly, with the premise of providing sellers with a maximum budget of $2,000 to invest in making their home as appealing as possible to would-be buyers (and, thus, maximizing the sale price). Designed to Sell relies on the expertise of interior designers, stagers,  and home improvement gurus, bringing a team of helping hands straight into your living room.

Income Property, HGTV
Though Income Property is geared toward first-time buyers who are looking to make some money from their homes by renting out rooms within their homes to cover their mortgage, host Scott McGillivray offers up a ton of tips that property managers can apply. With ten years of experience under his belt, McGillivray has made a career out of generating income from property investments. On Income Property, McGillivray offers tips for making renovations that will appeal to renters and can also help property managers increase income by identifying creative ways to parcel off areas with income-generation in mind (for example, refinishing basements so that they can be rented out).

My First Home, TLC
Even if you’re not buying your first home, TLC’s My First Home still offers up a ton of useful tools to help navigate the property purchasing process with less stress and greater ease. While you may already be in the loop with the basics, watching others navigate the various trials and tribulations that come with the loan, home seeking, and inspection processes can still arm you with a wealth of knowledge that can be applied to your own future property purchasing endeavors.

Property Ladder, TLC
Any real estate investor (or would-be investor) interested in property flipping should be in the loop with TLC’s Property Ladder, hosted by veteran realtor and real estate developer Kirsten Kemp. As a designer by trade, Kemp offers up some great ideas for designs and renovations (with an emphasis on kitchens and bathrooms) that help home flippers maximize their investment when the time for the next flip rolls around. Best of all, Kemp shows viewers how to make these upgrades with not only aesthetic, but also budget and functionality in mind. With years of experience in the field, Kemp offers suggestions based on common mistakes, using hard-won lessons of her own and of other home-flippers to help make your flip as profitable and simple as possible.

Next time you feel guilty about watching TV, remember … you’re potentially increasing your profits down the line!

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Hi All,

Geoff here from Buildium. We already wrote a subletting links post last week in response to our To Sublet or Not to Sublet: A Property Manager’s Perspective post. That said, I figured I’d tell you a bit about a book I just finished reading; The New Non-Nonsense Landlord by Richard Jorgensen. The book focuses on the building wealth with rental properties, from the perspective of the individual real estate investor rather than from a property management company’s perspective. Regardless of this fact, I felt that this book was worth sharing — many property management professionals pursue rental properties as a means of building their own nest egg. Jorgensen writes in a direct and succinct manner, offering what I consider to be very practical and straightforward advice on building wealth through rental properties. He emphasizes hard work and efficient fiscal management, continuously downplaying the “get rich quick” schemes that are so prevalent in real estate investing circles.

I think that this book would be a great resource for any beginner investor. The book certainly opened my eyes to the benefits of owning rental property and motivated me to do so on my own. Whether you’re thinking of investing in properties of your own or not, Jorgensen offers several chapters worth of advice that speak directly to any property manager, including chapters on:

Managing Real Estate through a Crisis

Tenants: The Lifeblood of the Real Estate Industry

Establishing a Sound Credit and Collection Policy

Dealing with Tenant Problems, Complaints, and Rents

The text is very inexpensive and is available through amazon.com in both Kindle and print editions. It’s worth a read.

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Remember that weight loss plan you took off on at the beginning of 2010? While New Year’s Resolutions often become laughably non-effective, there’s no denying that now is as good of a time as ever to at least conduct a review of your property management practices and create an action plan to improve upon your weaknesses in 2011. These links will identify areas of your property management practice to analyze and recommend some changes for new-found efficiency.

• In reviewing how your business did in 2010, you may want to conduct a thorough SWOT analysis. In fact, this might be a great end of year practice to work into your business annually.
• Many property management companies start off when someone relocates and decides to rent their own home, through an inheritance, or by some other indirect means. If this is the case, it may be worth writing out a formal business plan for your property management business.
• Not sure where to start? Chances are your tenants know exactly what you could be doing better. After all, these are the people who call your property home. A tenant satisfaction survey may provide just the insight you need.
• Let’s face it — nothing is more critical to running a successful property management business than knowing exactly where you stand financially. This property management accounting book will help to ensure that you understand your reporting and know where you stand.

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