When you’re looking for a Chicagoland area property management company, it’s a very good idea to find one that invests in and embraces technology. By utilizing technology and automation whenever possible, a property manager can take care of your property more efficiently and effectively.
On today’s blog, we want to share some of the ways that we use technology at MF Cashflow.
Advertising Chicago Rental Properties
One of the ways we use technology is when we’re advertising and marketing your vacant rental home. We use the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS. As a licensed real estate broker in Illinois, I have access to the MLS, which is a huge tool in getting your property in front of thousands of potential renters and agents. The MLS also syndicates their listings to more than 80 other rental websites.
This is a great tool in getting your home rented as quickly as possible, reducing your vacancy rates and ensuring your property is in front of a large pool of prospective tenants.
Investing in Appfolio for Property Management Software
Appfolio is our property management software system, and it’s loaded with tools that help us manage your property better. It can help us further market your property even beyond what we do through the MLS. It also helps us to gather applications and accept application fees. We charge a $45 application fee, and it’s taken through Appfolio. From there, we can scroll line by line through a tenant’s application.
We also use Appfolio to manage our routine and emergency maintenance services. We have a maintenance hotline that’s available 24/7, and when a tenant calls in with a repair issue, it gets dispatched to the right person.
With Appfolio, we can communicate better with tenants. Tenants can text us back and forth through the Appfolio portal, keeping us available and accessible. The platform also keeps a record of every message from the communication and message history. So, that documentation can be extremely useful.
It’s much easier to keep track of vacancies with Appfolio. The system lets us know when we have vacancies coming up, and we’ll know at least 30 days ahead of time that we can expect tenants to be moving out. This helps us to get your property filled faster. Many times, we’ll know a tenant who is looking for a property that matches the one that will soon be vacant.
Property Management Technology and Smartsheets
We also use Smartsheets to stay organized and efficient. This program takes things to another level that Appfolio doesn’t. It especially works for us when it comes to managing utilities. We can take one sheet and include check marks that notify the Gas Company, electric company, and landscaper whenever there’s a change in residency or we need services for things like snow removal or grass mowing.
We are committed to using technology because it helps us do a better job of managing your Chicagoland rental property. If you’d like to hear more details, the MF Cashflow Team will be happy to talk to you.
