At the end of the day, landlords strive to take home as much revenue as possible. Revenue from rent payments is the foundation for your rental business. Without sufficient revenue, it’s impossible to maintain a successful business of any kind.
Fortunately, landlords have help in their pursuit of revenue. Landlords have many tools at their disposal, the biggest being property management software. Software is an excellent way to increase efficiency and accessibility, as well as meet your other rental business goals.
Generating more revenue is always the goal. However, it’s not always feasible to increase rent. Rent pricing often depends on factors out of your hands, including where your properties are located, the tenant population you target, and current market trends. Thus, if landlords want to make more money, cutting costs is often a more effective strategy.
Here are three ways property management software helps increase revenue and cut expenses.
1. Tenant Screening
Tenant screening can be an expensive component of property management. You can’t skip screening, yet small screening costs for each tenant can quickly add up.
For example, obtaining county criminal records typically costs around $16-$25 per county checked. State records are nearly as expensive at $10-$25 but may be less accurate than county records or include inconsistencies. Prices for national criminal records vary widely based on what information you request, but these are also costly at $13-$60.
These expenses might be worth it if you only manage a few units with long-term leases. However, for landlords with many units, these costs can occupy a significant portion of your budget.
Property management software is the solution to this problem. Your software partners with a third-party service to provide comprehensive records in just a few moments.
Depending on the software’s pricing structure, you might have to pay an initial fee for the screening feature. After this, however, you won’t have to pay any extra fees to ensure your tenants meet your standards.
2. Reduce Tenant Turnover
Another way to maximize revenue is to reduce tenant turnover. As you already know, tenant turnover is the period of time your properties lie vacant. Without renters, you’re missing out on months of rent and the full potential of revenue you could be generating.
Property management software offers many features aimed toward reducing tenant turnover. For instance, many software platforms offer rental advertising. Once you’ve composed a new listing or updated an old one, you can upload it to your property management software. From there, many platforms provide listing syndication so you can post your listing to multiple listing sites simultaneously.
If you want to fill units, you need your listings on top sites like Zillow and Apartments.com. It can be time-consuming and tedious to upload the same listing to each site separately. With listing syndication, you can get the job done faster and start generating interest in your properties sooner.
Property management software helps you fill units faster and with less effort, so you can start collecting your new revenue as soon as possible.
3. Manage Your Business Independently
Property management software is built specifically for landlords. While many platforms offer multi-user management, the software is designed so that landlords can manage a rental business entirely independently.
When you manage your business independently, you might not have to hire additional personnel like a property manager or accountant. These roles can be a great help in large businesses, but if you can handle the tasks on your own, there’s no need to pay other people to do them.
Property management software saves you money and increases take-home revenue by eliminating employment costs. You can succeed as your own property manager and hire outside help (such as maintenance experts) only as they are needed.
Maximize Revenue with Property Management Software
Property management software usually requires an initial investment. While a few platforms are free (or partly free), most will charge access fees or monthly subscriptions.
However, after this initial investment, property management software will quickly pay itself off in increased revenue. Software offers a plethora of ways to cut costs and maximize opportunities to increase revenue. Using property management software ensures your rental business is prepared to operate at its maximum potential.
