Flipper/Rehabber · Abington, MA · Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 16 votes
I am going to list my first rental next week. I already have a business number for my other business (Architect & flipper). My question is, should I get another number for my rentals or just use my business number I use for my other businesses? I really don’t want a new number to manage but might be easier to screen calls if they’re from another number. .... thoughts?
I try to avoid calls on rentals. I try to get people into forms, then text, phone being the last option in terms of communication. The calls are always-is this available, what is the rent, do you take section 8, etc. Do you really need to be on a call for that? Basically, try to streamline without calls first!
I think you should get a number just for your rental business. You can get a google voice number that you can point to an office line or your cell phone. You can see it is coming from your google voice number and answer appropriately. There are probably other services out there like this as well, I found google voice easy to use. Hope this helps, Lynn
I am of the opinion to keep things simple in order to keep moving forward in your business. Wait until you have at least 10 rentals or so before you mess with getting apps and phone numbers etc. Begin with the end in mind, what exactly is the value from going around with the administrative tasks of getting more phone numbers?
You can get a free Google Voice phone number, and then in your settings, have all of those calls forwarded to your cell phone. When it rings, it shows the Google Voice number as the incoming call, so you'll know it is someone calling your Google Voice number. When I got mine, I think it cost me $20, but at least at that time, that was a lifetime one-time fee. Not sure if the fees have changed.
Google voice is free. I set up 2, one for my wife's phone and one for mine. I hated them and don't use them now. Call quality was garbage, and trying to set up a separate ring tone I had to save the google voice number as a contact, and doing so it no longer would let me screen calls. For $30 a month I have another cell phone with Cricket. I hate carrying two phones, but hey for me it is the lesser of 2 evils.
I try to avoid calls on rentals. I try to get people into forms, then text, phone being the last option in terms of communication. The calls are always-is this available, what is the rent, do you take section 8, etc. Do you really need to be on a call for that? Basically, try to streamline without calls first!
I'm using Google Voice - free! Call quality is fantastic. I have it setup on my cell and can receive and call out on it. So simple I don't get what all the hubbub us about?!
@Lee Ripma My goal is to have online forms first but that's hard to put on a for rent sign on the lawn & have it readable .... I'm listing on MLS & Zillow. I've looked at a few apps that could help with incoming applications.
@Flash Alexander my issue is I already have two google voice numbers and can only have one ring on my cell. The google voice app does not let you add more then one at once (at least the last time I tried). So if I got a new number it would be for voice messages only. Which may/may not be a good thing,
@Allan Smith this is what I’m leaning towards but I’m putting a for rent sign on the lawn & need to put something readable for them to contact me with ... the only real reason I’m considering another number is one of my rentals I co-own with family. I’ll be managing it but want them to have access to a potential phone number just in case.
@Nate Bell if they let me do two numbers to one phone I would. My work number is already google & they only allow one phone number to be associated with each “home”/backup number.
Yes. I used it to communicate with friends in other countries. The problem with WhatsApp is that it's owned by facebook now. And, the new privacy requirements that you have to agree to - are the same as facebook. You have to allow it to access a lot of info on your phone, including your contacts and that they can use your contact list to advertise to your contacts, etc. I removed it from my phone after this happened.
As to getting calls on available units, I just let all calls go to voicemail and I'd screen them. I'd keep a list of all messages, day and time they called and why I wasn't going to rent to them, or if I called them back and what happened during that call or if I left a message, etc. You can actually screen out a lot of callers just from the voicemails. If they're screaming at their kids with filthy language while leaving me a message, if it sounds like they're drunk and calling me from a bar, if your ad says no pets and they ask if they can have their two dogs (and don't mention that they're ESAs), if they leave a voicemail every 5 minutes yelling about the fact you haven't called them back, etc. I actually had things like this listed in my criteria, so I could just deny some of them based on voicemails. Rude people who yell at me because I haven't returned their phone calls fast enough are not a protected class, for example.
Then, if you know they're going to be denied, or you've already told them they're denied, and you've made a note of their phone number, you can just keep ignoring those calls.
I tried out Google voice and regretted it. Maybe I don't know the ins-out of the app or my phone was not set-up the correct way. I missed calls and then when trying to call back didn't work as expected. I had to constantly looked at the app for notifications. Ended up using my regular phone number. Skip it if you can. You want a reliable number people can reach you out.
I have different VOIP numbers going through my office Pbx. They cost around $1 per month per number. I can get numbers for specific campaigns too. Voip.ms is a SIP provider I have been happy with. They also have PBx functionality if you don’t have your own and just want to use a SIP phone and or SIP app.
On my cell, I am using My Sudo (only iOS so far). You can get up to 9 numbers.
Also something to keep in mind about google voice; I live in the Los Angeles area and have two vacancies available that were getting unusually high levels of attention online so what does google voice do? They suspended my number. If you have a high volume of calls or text (in my case, both) they will flag it as spam. I was able to recover the number after an appeal and waiting 24 hours, but my regular tenants have that number as well and I was unreachable for 24 hours. Google voice said my appeal was approved with a warning and I am now scared to continue using the number in fear of losing it permanently. I am now looking for an alternative way to have a number strictly for marketing rentals.
@Daisy Felix Google voice is a great notion but for me there were too many pitfalls; one of them was reliability and quality of calls was not where I needed it. For $30 a month, cricket is a great option. A separate phone for tenant calls. On a separate ring tone, when it rings, it shows me which tenant is calling. I don't like having 2 phones and I don't like spending $360 a year on a phone, but the convenience is worth it to me. I don't drink starbucks, never will, so there's my starbucks money.