All Forum Posts by: Ray Hespen

Sick and tired of all the phone calls and e-mails coordinating maintenance, reminding, notifying, and following up with tenants? Of course you are. That's the reason for our existence. We remove the headache and all the e-mails and phone calls that come with it. Automating your maintenance operation has become a reality. 

Our system receives requests, assigns maintenance, coordinates schedules, updates and notifies all parties of repairs, pays vendors, follows-up with tenants, and more! We do it automatically from the palm of your hand. Give us a shot with a 30 day free trial!

Property Meld

Welcome @Justin Reyes!  It's great you are taking a practical approach at working yourself into the business.  The internet is full of knowledge, coming to BP is a great start to honing your understanding and skills.  

I think ActiveBuilding by Realpage has a quasi solution.  I'm not 100% sure as I'm not a client... but from my understanding they include some of those features to keep tenants and managers on the same page.  You might want to look into that.  

Our system is a communication/scheduling tool for property managers in the maintenance aspect specifically.  

I think you're on to something though.  There is plenty of room in the market for improved technology for property management.  

@Micah Dickson- I'd be happy to share.

Nickel tour - our system receives requests, handles all scheduling and coordination between maintenance (internal/external) and tenants, notifies all parties of repair (including manager), reminds tenants day and hour before repair, follow-up with tenants to ensure satisfaction, tracks costs, and more.  All without making a single phone call or sending a single e-mail.  

Our system changes a 6-step "touch" process into a 1-step process.  The software is incredibly simple to use and was designed to be 100% mobile friendly (without requiring a download of an application).

Message me your e-mail address and we can set up a private demo.  Thanks for reaching out.  

@Marcus Norman,

There are very many great software services out there.  The previous post talked about different fees, but what was never clarified is that it's based on your unit count.  I believe Buildium has a $40 minimum and Appfolio has a $200 minimum.  Pricing is progressive with the amount of properties you manage.  Appfolio is a flat rate $1/unit x month and Buildium is rather similar.  

My recommendations on your software toolkit:

Accounting: Buildium or Appfolio; both are very strong in the small to medium size accounting services.  The can also manage the on-boarding process once you have an interested candidate.  Once you grow larger, Yardi or Realpage are more built for enterprise-type businesses.  

Inspections: Snap Inspect; very solid in mobile and very flexible for your operation.  Clean and simple to use.  

Maintenance: Property Meld (our service); receives requests, coordinates all parties, notifies everyone of repairs, reminds tenants the day and hour before, and follows up with them all automatically.  Buildium and Appfolio have a portal, but manager has to coordinate everything on their own.  

Rent Collection: Buildium or Appfolio are both pretty good at this.  There is also a variety of other services such as RentPayment.  Rates and fees vary.  

Lead Management: Tenant Turner; a great system that pre-approves all your tenants and schedules apartment or building showings automatically.  They also perform all the background checks and everything prior to a tenant being scheduled for a showing.  

Reputation & Business Growth Management: Rentpath or Fourandhalf; both exceptional companies.  Fourandhalf a bit more agile as a company as Rentpath has been established for years.  I would recommend either.  

I hope this helps!

If you go to any of the NARPM or NAA tradeshows you'll see just as you described.  Many companies popping up as the 'best of breed'.  You see people like Tenant Turner who are great at lead generation.  You have Snap Inspect who does a great job at inspections. Property Meld actually handles all the maintenance aspects (including scheduling and coordinating tenants and maintenance personnel).  What happens when you become the 'jack-of-all-trades' is you forfeit being exceptional at anything.... All these tools to some extent exist on many software systems, but the tools aren't as robust.  There are many young companies taking advantage of this and hitting the market hard.  

It's probably more common now to see property managers having a 'tool chest' as opposed to an all-in-one software.  

 Done and done :).

@Roderick Carabott you should check out Property Meld.  It's a very cool tool that does what you ask for and more.

It receives requests, coordinates repairs (very cool), reminds parties of work to be performed, follows-up with tenant, pays vendor, tracks costs, and more.  

A note about the coordinating - one of the biggest headaches is coordinating repairs with maintenance and the tenant.  The software actually has a cool coordination feature that allows your maintenance and tenant to coordinate repairs while keeping you in the loop.  No phone calls.... no e-mails....

This software is specifically maintenance.... so it sounds like a good fit for you.  If you would like to know more feel free to reach out and I'll answer to the best of my ability.  

@Account Closed - there is actually a new system that not only receives requests but coordinates the repairs as well..

As the person above mentioned... Buildium is a great accounting tool, but once you receive the maintenance request, it's up to you and your team to contact the vendor, coordinate the work, follow-up, and so on.  

Property Meld has a web based solution that allows tenants to submit from any device, and allows you (the manager) to also view from any device.  We receive the requests, coordinate repairs, remind all parties of upcoming work, follow-up with tenant, pay vendors, and more!

If you'd like to know more... please hit me up.  I'd be happy questions to the best of my ability.  

The common issue that you'll find with all landlords is the maintenance management aspect.  Depending on your size of operation, this time consumption can really start to add up.  I suggest equipping yourself with a good accounting software, and a good maintenance software.  For people operating with less than 100 houses, Quickbooks will work just fine.  I always suggest a maintenance management system such as Property Meld.  If you are looking for something to coordinate repairs from start to finish without all the phone calls and e-mails, it is a fantastic tool.