Good landlords try to keep their tenants happy. It not only increases retention rates but it leads to positive reviews, which in turn helps fill costly vacancies.
But keeping tenants happy isn’t as easy it sounds. It’s more than just being friendly and keeping up with maintenance and repairs. It’s also about providing nice amenities and features.
Fortunately, there are a lot of technologies out there that you can leverage to make your tenants’ lives easier.
Here are some of the top ones you can implement today to boost the appeal of their rentals:
1. Keyless Entry
Nobody likes fumbling for keys to get inside their home. So make getting in and out easy by installing an automated door lock system. It could be a keypad, a card scanner that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, or Unikey technology that turns your smartphone into a universal door key.
In any case, non-key solutions do away with a lot of hassle, not to mention eliminate the possibility of tenants losing their keys or getting locked out. That means you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to help let them in either. It’s a win-win!
2. Online Portal
If you’re not using an online portal to manage tenant relations, you need to. It can automate so much of your rental property business, it’s nearly guaranteed to yield a positive ROI over time.
Here are just a few of the things that an online portal can handle:
- Online applications—Finding new tenants is a pain. But online applications allow prospective tenants to fill out their information digitally and sign with an e-signature to apply for your rental much faster.
- Document management—Between applications, lease agreements, move-in checklist, and more, landlords juggle a lot of documents. An online portal can keep track of them all by storing them in digital format and backing them up to the cloud.
- Online rent payment—Collecting rent via check is slow and tedious. But online portals can do the job faster and more safely by allowing tenants to connect their bank accounts and transfer money online. You can also send automated due date reminders and allow tenants to set up auto-pay transfers to reduce late payments.
Of course, the portal only helps if the tenants are paying their bills. If they’re missing payments, you’re going to want to work with an attorney to either get them to pay or evict them. According to Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney Devin Sawdayi, “every now and then you might get tenants who go through bankruptcy. But while this can get them out of some expenses like medical bills, they’ll still need to pay rent.”
- Maintenance requests—It’s hard to keep track of several maintenance requests at the same time. Online portals can provide digital forms that tenants fill out to report a maintenance issue. Requests go into a queue, where you (or your team) can tackle them from oldest to newest. Then you can mark requests as “received,” “in progress,” or “completed,” to keep tenants updated. This not only keeps you organized and prevents things from falling through the cracks, but it provides a record that can protect you in any disputes later on.
- 24/7 customer support—The more tenants you have, the harder it is to respond to them quickly. With an online portal, you can use chatbots to offer 24/7 customer support for common questions. Write out scripts for the questions you get most and handle the rest manually. This way, you can improve your overall response time and stay more cognizant of struggling tenants.
3. Smart Home Automations
Just like there are smartphones, there are also smart homes. It’s really just an umbrella term for houses that have advanced automation features.
Here are some of the smart home automation you can install to please your tenants:
- Smart thermostat—These can be automated to maintain different temperatures based on the time of day, season, and if anyone’s home. It not only saves tenants from having to adjust the temperature manually but it saves you on utility costs.
- Smart lighting—This allows you to turn the lights on and off with your voice or program them to change on a schedule. You can even have them go on and off randomly while you’re gone to imitate human behavior for deterring burglars.
- Smart entertainment—Smart TVs and sound systems can be activated by voice control so you don’t have to use a remote. You can even save settings to trigger different presets or “moods” like a party or a romantic setting.
4. High-Speed Internet
Tenants rely on the internet more than ever. They need it for all sorts of things: streaming films and music, making video calls, and working remotely. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only increased our reliance on the internet.
To give tenants a quality experience, have internet access already set up. That way, they don’t need to install it themselves. And make sure it’s high-speed, too, so they don’t get frustrated with slow buffer rates and lagging.
5. Security Cameras
Every tenant wants to feel safe in their own home. To help them feel secure, install security cameras on the property. They’ll be a deterrent for theft and violence. Criminals are simply less likely to commit a crime if they know they’re being watched.
But security cameras also provide a valuable record. If anything questionable happens on your property, you can look back at the video reels for a closer look. You can even hire a security company to monitor your cameras for you 24/7 and alert law enforcement when something bad happens. This will make your tenants feel much safer, especially if your property is in a sketchy part of town.
Final Thoughts
Before the era of software and automation, being a landlord was pretty straightforward. But now you really need to leverage technology to set yourself apart from the competition.
Start by choosing a technology that would be easiest for you to implement. As you gradually modernize your rental properties, you’ll attract better tenants, who will want to stay longer and will live happier. If you serve them in this way now, you’ll be rewarded in the long run.