Tenant portals provide unique advantages, particularly in an age in which digital adoption has become a priority. The real estate sector has experienced substantial innovation: PropTech development, RPA, ERP and CRM software, and other techs are fantastic examples.
Tenant portals enable a seamless communication channel for landlords and tenants. During the pandemic, maintaining positive tenant-landlord relationships became vital. Implementing a modern portal could prove invaluable for all property managers.
However, that doesn’t mean any system will suffice. You need to know what you can expect from these platforms. Let’s go through the standard features you need from your tenant portal.
If you’re interested in leveraging these platforms, do consider hiring a professional Yardi implementation service. It’s the most effective way to guarantee the results you want from your portal.
1. Data centralization
Tenant portals generate countless data that you can use for virtually everything. However, it’s much better to have this data available in one place.
Today’s platforms let you access all the data you need, from all leases, without leaving your dashboard.
2. Intuitive homepage and navigation
Likewise, this space must also be easy to navigate. Tenants can quickly get frustrated if it takes them minutes to find the functions they need.
Modern systems offer a simple homepage where you can access all the tools you need with few clicks.
3. Remote access and notifications
All tenants must be able to access the portal and its fundamental tools from mobile devices. The focus here is convenience.
Similarly, notifications help them stay updated on their requests and essential communications. These notifications usually integrate with other features.
4. Comprehensive deal management
Lease agreements go from marketing properties to tenant applications and signing contracts. Your portal must cover most—if not all—of these steps.
That also means getting rid of needless paperwork and in-person interviews. All the deal information should remain in the cloud database.
5. Reducing process times
Naturally, digital solutions reduce the time required for many tasks. Your tenant portal should be no exception.
That means implementing features like automated payment processing, notifications, and remote access. These features digitize traditionally lengthy responsibilities.
6. Tenant request management
All properties require maintenance and repairs. That's true for residential and commercial real estate alike. Your tenants need a way to send requests that don't require lengthy paperwork, meetings, and waiting.
The best tenant portals today offer a request platform. Tenants can access it from their dashboard, choose the service they need, and place an instant request. Landlords get notified instantly, and they can process and track the service in real-time.
7. Vendor contact lists
All requests need vendors to fulfill them: plumbers, gardeners, electricians, and others. Your tenant portal must offer a section with the best vendors for the job. You can register and access their contact information as soon as the request arrives.
8. Vendor management
Merely having their contact information might not be enough, and many tenant portals go beyond that. The best solutions let you contact the vendor from your dashboard and track every request's current status in real-time.
9. Risk mitigation
By letting you assess every lease, modern systems allow you to spot risky tenants. Entities facing financial instability and other difficulties could topple a lease agreement. The data in your portal's dashboard lets you find these risks and plan accordingly.
10. Financial accuracy
Modern solutions record every transaction for your accounting and auditing needs. Thanks to their process automation, you don’t need to risk human error. Additionally, tenant portals typically let you export these reports for your accounting team and records.
11. Portfolio valuation
Similarly, the information available in your tenant portal allows property managers to measure the current value for every asset. Modern solutions offer data such as vacancy rates, rent prices, upcoming contract expirations, and more.
You can compare these metrics with your other properties and market competitors to measure market values.
12. Lease profiles
Every lease translates into countless factors—all of which are crucial to evaluating profitability, anomalies, and more. Knowing your occupants' names and rent costs is often not enough.
Tenant portals create profiles for every lease. These profiles contain all the information you need within a few clicks.
13. In-depth property lease data
14. Individual tenant assessment
15. Deal quality evaluation
16. Lease comparison
17. E-signature support and digital transactions
Eliminating paperwork is the future for all industries, and real estate isn’t the exception. Tenant portals allow you to process lease contracts and digital signatures.
It eliminates the need for in-person signing, and that convenience (and safety) makes your offer more attractive.
18. Digital bulletin boards
Tenant portals offer forum-like bulletin boards where landlords and members can communicate seamlessly in real-time. While it might seem simple, it does wonders for keeping everyone posted on recent developments, and it’s a relatively new implementation.
19. Event calendars
Speaking of developments, we can also include event calendars, which are becoming standard for tenant portals. These calendars work like your standard Google Calendar, but every tenant can access them, and it sends notifications to everyone.
20. Cloud document storage
Finally, this is among the fundamental features, but it’s still crucial for any tenant portal. You must be able to store all relevant documents for every lease on the platform’s cloud.
It’s considerably safer than physical filing systems, and it enables automatic backups in case of emergency.