All Forum Posts by: Connie Chan

@Stephanie P. Thanks! Do you have recommendations on where I can learn more about portfolio financing? I have heard rates are great right now and want to look into it.

@Trey Crusey totally agree. I used to give my cell phone to tenants but one day realized that was a bad idea when one tenant added me on whatsapp and started messaging me there (in addition to normal texts and email). It was too hard to track threads of conversation and more importantly I want to reserve Whatsapp to friend conversations, not rental “work”. I now use Tellus app for the rent collection but they also have built in chat that all gets backed up and has read receipts. I try to only communicate that way now so I can maintain privacy, have backup of everything (IMessage is not automatically backed up), and also the threaded convo makes it easy to find old messages and refer to them when needed. Added bonus? The tenants are more likely to send photos when maintenance is needed. Once saved me a trip or two by simply seeing photos of what “broke” and needed fixing. Anyways I would look for other communication solutions besides traditional texts. The Tellus app is free

@Michele Wax wow. Where is the 5 out of 6 statistic from? Hadn’t heard that one before.

@Tamara Koonce maybe refinance the multi in New York? Is it in a good area? Good rental yield?

@Brendan Hayne I also use Tellus. I don't have as many units as you so I can't give you a perfect reccomendation but it works great for me and my family. It allows for property managers + owners so you can keep roles separate. I self manage so I don't use that feature. It's all centralized and you can have different bank accounts per property and it's fast to log income and expenses (plus I like using the phone to take a photo of the receipts). I mostly use the app not the web version, my tenants have liked the experience too and they pay more on time now that they can use Autopay. I don't use the late rent feature but I do use the block partial payments feature. You have so many units the rent roll and financial statements will probably save you a lot of time! 

@Douglas Goldstein what interest rate are you getting in the refinance? Maybe you can get it to break even by researching more to get a better rate? Or private notes or seller financing etc.

@Chance Stein, I'm a user. So is my mom and husband, we use it to co-manage rentals which is probably my favorite aspect (the ability to support multiple users/roles). You can set co-owners and property managers and manage the homes together -- sort of like Google Docs for rentals. My mom can go to Home Depot to rekey something, then take a photo of that receipt and attach it to one of my rentals and I can see it on my dashboard and financial reports. 

My tenants have been happy with it. Some of them turn on AutoPay when they pay rent which I prefer, and some prefer to pay by tapping the payment button each month. For those users the rent notifications are helpful and I also get a notification when someone is late. I haven't used the late fee feature but I know it's there. Also you can refuse partial payments and have a different bank account per property.

The financial reports are good and professional. I can download the PDF's and it slices the finances by property or unit and also includes photos of the receipts, it did save me time during tax season this year. I have not used the listing and screening features yet. I had asked them for a sample screening report and it looked more comprehensive than what I used in the past. The listing feature shows a bunch of all the top rental sites so I will definetly give it a try the next time I have a vacancy. 

The other feature I use a lot is the chat. I used to manage things by email but one of my tenants started texting and adding me on Whatsapp etc. and it just became a mess to communicate with her and her husband especially when trying to coordinate a repair. Sometimes they'd email my husband instead of me, sometimes they don't use the same email thread, etc. Now I just type the messages in the chat part of Tellus and everyone who is part of that lease can see the message and chat history and I also have a record of what was said with read receipts. I haven't had particularly bad tenant experiences yet (knock on wood!) but I appreciate having easily accessible records of past communication. 

Some things I hope they'll address. In addition to letting you input existing lease details they also have a digital lease template where you can just sign it online. But their current lease template doesn't cover all 50 states yet. I asked their customer service about it and they said it'll come soon but I don't know when. By the way the customer service is good too. It's nice to talk to a human instead of a bot! 

Overall I really like it, it's modern (which I care about for tenants) and saves me time and stress. Plus it's free with no maximum units so it can grow as you grow your portfolio! 

@Ivan Loza flowers go a long way! Especially when strategically placed in the front or back yard. Also a new coat of paint or swapping out the door handles for modern ones can make a big difference. For example griege it gray paint versus bone can make the rental look much newer.

@Jorge Rubio I think it also depends how many properties you have. And whether the rental is a single family home or a property with many units. Banks sometimes don’t like to lend to landlords who have over 4 properties (not sure why).

@Chris Sellers for six homes I would recommend Tellus app. Features include rent collection, tenant chat, reminders, expense tracking, leases, financial reports, screening, listing, other payments etc. I like that it’s all in one system and free. Also supports multi users so you can set spouses or family members (or a property manager) and co manage the rentals together. It’s free to use and free for the tenants too! Nice modern software and the support responds quickly.