BiggerPockets

I use Vumber for my tenants to contact me. When the tenants call my number it goes directly to my cell phone. If I do not answer it will send me an email with the voicemail or I can check my voicemail by calling my number. You can also turn off the number if you want or make the calls be directed to different phone numbers. I like this service because the tenants do not have my cell phone number and adds a level of privacy.

I'm not sure about Google Voice but you should check out phone.com. They offer an expensive way to handle inquiries and some of the features include transfer and call forwarding.

I do use GV with a local number for my tenant to get in touch with me. NEVER had any problems, very mobile and easy to use.

Google Voice is a great service, I use it all of the time. It syncs well with my smartphone (Android, of course).

Not only is it good for international calls (extremely cheap compared to carrier rates, and I make far too many calls to Canada), it's good for people you don't want to give your real number to.

If you are using your cell phone, you have to be in 3G coverage, basically. There are issues with call quality, but I've never had it be so bad that it's unusable. I give it out on a regular basis to people that I don't want to give my phone number to.

Visual voicemail is also wonderful. I like just reading my messages. It's not the best voice transcription, but it usually works well enough to get the point across.

Also, making calls from your computer is always nice, if a novelty at some points. Also, things like ringing to certain phones in certain hours, so that it calls your home and cell, having people say their name and then accepting the call based on that, and a ton of other stuff do make it useful.

I'd say use it. It's free, it gives you a number in the area code you want, and it works.

I use Google Voice for other business, but I am my own property manager, and my tenants all have all of my contact numbers. That's the way I like it.

not paying for google voice rocks.

I use phone.com with a purchased 800 # from tollfreenumbers.com.

Phone.com allows multiple menus, recorded outgoing messages, extensions, forwards, etc. I pay less than $18/mo, and it gives a very professional impression. My tenants have my maintenance guy's phone number and mine for emergencies. That's intentional.

The reason I bought the number from tollfreenumbers.com is that it is portable anywhere. If you buy it from your virtual switchboard, sometimes you lose it when you switch services, so watch for that. I think it's $49

As for Google Voice, I used to use it for visual voice mail with my Verizon droid, but it was consistently inconsistent. It frequently didn't give me a vm indicator, and I often couldn't play back messages. I switched to the paid visual voice mail from Verizon and at least it usually works.