Real estate investors aren’t always the most tech-savvy people on the planet, but investors who use technology tend to fill units and close deals faster. Their success could just be the result of tracking progress, but even so – digital tools make it easy to track progress accurately.
Here’s a list of 4 cutting-edge technologies commercial and residential real estate investors use to fill units and close deals fast.
1. Asset management software
For commercial real estate investors or investors who own multiple residential properties, asset management software is crucial to maximizing profits.
It’s important to document and monitor assets, deals, and leases in a way that calculates insights that can inform your decisions. For example, digital inventory management allows you to see empty units at-a-glance so you can start generating leads without having to do manual calculations.
A higher-end asset management software like VTS also provides analytics and a platform for nurturing tenant relationships. VTS is one of many applications available to real estate investors; it’s the most popular for a good reason. Once a tenant is entered into the system, the system will generate data about each tenant that might help you close new deals faster.
VTS also helps investors manage deals by monitoring opportunities, tracking tours, and makes it easy for colleagues to communicate regarding deal financials.
Having dynamic asset management software makes it possible for teams to make timely and correct decisions that move deals faster.
2. Property management companies
Some real estate investors are out there struggling to be landlords when all they really want to do is be business owners. Smart investors avoid this struggle by hiring a property management company to handle all their landlord duties.
A property management company is more than just a team of people pushing paperwork and collecting rent. A full-service property management company uses cutting-edge technology to manage rent payments, list and market empty units, screen and evict tenants, handle maintenance and inspections, and sometimes sales. Property management companies also provide all the support tenants need, including 24-hour support for emergencies.
Managing tenant relationships is perhaps the biggest benefit provided by a property management company. It’s not easy enforcing a lease and tenants aren’t always pleasant, especially when they’re late with rent.
For example, say a landlord rents to someone with bad credit and an eviction on their record. Say that tenant is now a month late with the rent. Most landlords would evict the tenant and then use a collection agency to collect unpaid rent. That’s a logical response, but collection agencies have a terrible success rate – only 20% of accounts in collection get paid off.
A property management company would have set up a better screening process in the first place and would not have rented to someone with bad credit and an eviction.
3. MLS listings
There are countless websites that list homes for sale, but if you run into a scam, you’ll end up wasting time and money. Most internet sites allow anyone to create a listing without being required to prove their right to list the home.
For example, Trulia and Zillow are popular listing sites with an unreliable history. In 2018, a Trulia scammer scammed a couple out of $3,400 by publishing a copy of a legitimate listing from another website. Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. Scams are unavoidable when anyone can sign up for an account and list a home for sale.
On the other hand, MLS listings are far less likely to be scams. To post a home for sale in the MLS database, a person must be a licensed agent or broker paying membership dues. This greatly reduces the chances of getting caught up in a scam while looking for an investment property.
4. Smartphone alarms
Okay, there’s nothing cutting-edge about a smartphone alarm, but it’s all about how alarms are used. To close deals fast, investors need to show up to meetings on time and present themselves as reliable people.
Memories are unreliable and even when you have a great memory, it’s easy to get distracted by life. By setting alarms for all appointments and phone calls, investors ensure their timely arrival.
Real estate technology is still evolving
According to Tech Crunch, venture capitalists are investing in real estate technology more than ever. The landscape is shifting and companies like Fifth Wall are investing billions of dollars in real estate tech startups like VTS, Hippo, Opendoor, and Blend.
Once upon a time, real estate was an industry with one of the lowest IT budgets. Today, IT budgets are growing and investors recognize adopting IT is an essential part of their strategy.
