How to become a digital landlord

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How do you classify yourself as a homeowner or real estate investor? Are you a newbie just emerging on the scene? Do you identify as an independent or smallholder? Or are you perhaps a property manager with a few rentals?

How you view yourself in relation to the world of real estate depends largely on how other people like you categorize themselves. And this can include anywhere from a mom-and-pop landlord to a large multinational corporation. However, with the advent of modern technology, there is a new type of landlord on the scene – the digital landlord,

Earlier being a real estate investor or a landlord involved a lot of manual work. Things like collecting rent, sorting through paper applications, and even navigating maintenance issues were time-consuming and tedious. But with technological advancements in the real estate landscape, technology is transforming the historically manual pain points of the rental process into something seamless, simple and digital.

What is a digital landlord?

A digital landlord is someone who uses technology to manage their properties. This can include anything from asset management software to keyless technology to remote security measures.

Now, you may not even consider yourself a digital landlord, but I bet if you look around and examine your business operations, you are more tech savvy than you think.

For example, most of us use a spreadsheet of some sort to track and organize some aspect of rental management. This can be anything from noting who has paid rent and for what property, which leases are expiring soon, who has completed an application, and accounting.

Therefore, even something as simple as a spreadsheet indicates that you are more of a digital landlord than you might initially think. After all, even using your phone to check a text from a tenant can begin to paint the image of what a digital landlord is and how it can help define your business. Could

How is tech making the digital landlord?

The tech is creating digital landlords with a wide range of offerings (everything from automated rent collection to accounting software) for landlords and real estate investors to adopt.

As pervasive as digital technology is these days, it is nearly impossible not to be a somewhat digital homeowner. As mentioned earlier, even using your phone or a spreadsheet has its technical benefits. These mechanisms facilitate computation, communication, and management with the technology they provide. It would have been a different story 10-15 years ago! Most communication probably wasn’t done over cellphones yet, and you may still be using paper and pen to track rent payments!

However, the rise in technology has almost unwittingly created a digital landlord. After all, isn’t it much easier to catch up with a tenant or teammate with emails and text messages than it is to try to track someone down or pinpoint a mutually available time to meet? Firing off a quick text can easily solve a meeting time conversation and communicate a message efficiently.

You can even get ideas or do research on the techniques other real estate investors are using on TikTok! Yes that is correct. Even social media apps where investors are offering content can be a great addition to your tech toolbelt and bring you one step closer to being a digital landlord.

In addition to phones, spreadsheets and TikTok, property management software has increasingly become a way for digital landlords to manage their properties.

What Are The Features To Look For In Digital Real Estate?

Property management software offers plenty of features that can make the digital landlord feel like managing investment properties is a breeze. When it comes to determining which parts of your business you can enhance using digital technology, examine where in your business you’re working manually, which pain points can give you rewarding real estate. Experience is preventing you from leading, and what tasks would you prefer to simplify.

Below, we’ve listed some common pain points in real estate that can be simplified or strengthened with technology:

• rent collection
• tenant payments
• tenant screening
• late fees
• tenant communication
• maintenance request

Property management software is one technology option that you can use to deal with all of these traditional pain points. For example, rent collection can be automated with customized charges that auto-populate for tenants, automatically scheduled, and even automatically generate late fees.

Doesn’t that sound a lot easier than crunching numbers or picking up a check?

Tenant communication is another aspect of rental management that can be strengthened with digital technology. You can use property management software to send an email and push notifications to a tenant’s phone to remind them of upcoming rent payments, maintenance repairs, garbage pickup, or any other notification!

Benefits of being a digital landlord

There are many advantages to being a digital landlord – the first being the ability to manage your rental from anywhere. Because digital technology is so mobile and versatile these days, you’re likely to be able to manage most aspects of your business right from your smartphone.

And, because you’re able to manage your rental using digital technology, it can free up more time by eliminating manual tasks. With more of your time, you are able to spend it doing what you love.

You can increase the value of your rent by offering tenants options, such as signing up for credit boosting, to submit rent payments on time to bureaus like TransUnion. Historically, if you’ve been collecting rent via check or cash, it hasn’t been possible for tenants to build up their credit using rent payments.

In a nutshell, the main benefits of being a digital landlord are:

• You can manage your rental from anywhere
• You can spend more time doing what you love
• You can increase the value of your rental

How to become a digital landlord

Finally, we’ve come to the question: “How do I become a digital landlord?”

As mentioned earlier, there are many aspects of technology that you can adopt that will strengthen your image as a digital homeowner.

Want to be a digital landlord and own these features? RentReady’s property management apps can help! Automating your rent collection, tenant screening, late fees, e-lease signing and electronic applications are key aspects of going digital and managing your entire real estate portfolio from one app.

RentReady was developed to help landlords go digital and manage their properties from anywhere, anytime. Easily collect rent, screen tenants, fill vacancies, sign leases, and manage maintenance with the technology you need to manage your rent.

Get started using RentReady today!

Note by BiggerPockets: These are the views expressed by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BigPockets.