All Forum Posts by: Christian Szpilfogel

We use voip.ms. They have numbers everywhere; charge approx 1 cent per minute and $1/month per number. people can text these numbers and you can view it online or have texts forwarded to your mobile number or email. They also have a number of PBX type features including ring groups and hunt groups which then allow you to route calls as you wish. 

For example, my main number rings both my desk phone and my mobile phone.

This comes up a lot! So you may want to do a search.

Personally I use Buildium. However, I will say that it is important to document your own processes and determine which product fits best for your process priorities. I recently did an analysis between Buildium, Yardi Breeze and Rent Manager all of which are excellent solutions. I really liked the Yardi look and feel and their account team was outstanding. After documenting my processes and analysing each tool relative to my process steps, it became clear that Buildium was going to be a better fit for our operations.

I'm happy to share my findings relative to my business processes. Just send me a pm with your email address and I will send it your way.

You will find there are literally hundreds of PMS solutions if not thousands. So there is no lack of choice!

Personally I use Buildium. I would say they are good starting at about 20+ units. However, I will say that it is important to document your own processes and determine which product fits best for your process priorities. I recently did an analysis between Buildium, Yardi Breeze and Rent Manager all of which are excellent solutions. I really liked the Yardi look and feel and their account team was outstanding. After documenting my processes and analysing each tool relative to my process steps, it became clear that Buildium was going to be a better fit for our operations.

I'm happy to share my findings relative to my business processes. Just send me a pm with your email address and I will send it your way.

I use Adobe eSign in part because it is included with Adobe DC Pro which in itself is great for generating, editing and converting PDFs. Together it is the same price as Docusign. 

I use a number of solutions. I do use Arlo connected to an LTE modem for my construction projects. It is ideal for that though Wyze is a cheaper solution now. Wireless lets you move the cameras around as your project progresses and the LTE modem protects you from wire cuts. I just hide the LTE modem and Arlo base somewhere secure.

For permanent set ups I now typically use Ubiquiti cameras as they are semi-pro and have an excellent management and user interface. For my industrial buildings I tend to use full professional equipment. My security specialist is a WatchNet dealer so that is what I use. I find the professional stuff to be very good but their management and user interface is a bit dated. Ubiquiti is modern.

For door entry systems I have combinations of AIPhone and Mircom. I prefer AIPhone and it is my default to install which includes intercom and door buzzer functionality.

You could also use a Schlage door handle (FE595) with programable codes if you want to stay ultra simple. I only wish they had a wifi version of this like their deadbolt series.

Awesome combination, Josh! I did much of my career in creating tech products and switched over to full time real estate investing in 2017. Property Technology, or PropTech, is a rapidly emerging field that some suggest will be as big as FinTech. This is especially spurred on by the recent pandemic and the need to move to SaaS / Cloud solutions due to remote working. We are now nearly 100% SaaS based and looking to add new technologies. I also sit on the boards of a few companies that do solutions in this space as it is also how I get to combine my two interests.

This field is huge though. It covers everything from IoT (smart devices, in building automaton, etc) to operational business process improvements to transaction handling, etc. Certain areas are saturated, such as property management software unless you want to address a specific niche. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of PM solutions out there already.

One area that may be of interest is with IoT based solutions. This would include things like sensors and controls such as smart thermostats, lighting control, water meter flow sensors. Much of the real innovation in this area is being led by consumer technology and the traditional players have been slow to adopt for many reasons. The interesting thing is that a huge number of rental units are owned and managed by small individual investors who won't normally buy the expensive control systems. In Canada for example, CMHC published a report in 2017 that identified that 49% of all rental housing is owned by individual investors (non-corporate) and no doubt a good chunk of the corporate investors are also individuals who have set up corporations for liability management.

Consumer grade IoT devices are generally good enough and cheap enough to use and can actually improve your net operating income (NOI), comfort and property aesthetics. So with such a big pool of potential customers and ready made devices, it seems like it could be a good juxtaposition. What is missing though is decent management solutions geared to the non-techie small real estate investor where all devices could be centrally managed. The good news is that many of these devices have REST APIs or at least an integration into IFTTT or Zapier. So accessing them may not be hard. In the early days of home based IoT (aka home automation), there were hubs such as Wink and SmartThings but in the cloud age, on site based hubs make less and less sense and a cloud based solution would certainly make it easier to deploy.

There are lots of great areas to work on but this is just food for thought and perhaps will help spur some discussion!

Sounds like a fun project! My dad is a ham and I started looking into SDR as a potential project to work with him on. SDR, looks like a really interesting field. His pet projects though are more to do with EME. But as a fellow investor, landlord and techie, I"m curious to see what you come up with.

Yup. I'm quite interested in PropTech and do some advisory and investments in the field. I'm a former tech executive turned full time real-estate investor. I'm usually looking for things that will positively impact the NOI of my buildings.

I only pay C$15/month (C$180/yr) per subscription (I got a lifetime promo discount at the time). So I use these too for my hold co's. Your book keeper also can get deals and pass it on to you. For a hold co you could get away with QBO EasyStart which is retail $20/month.

I went with QBO because R&D will be focused on their cloud services and so will their ecosystem. The desktop version is almost certainly in legacy support. This is the trend in software development.