We have a few prop tips and best practices in project management ideas for you to ensure on-time rent collection for your company. And if you are having rent payment issues, here are all the ways you can solve them. Check them out below.  

1. Directly communicate with tenants 

There are many tenants who are habitually late in paying their rent on time or keeping up with any deadlines. As property managers, these people can be hard to manage and work with. But the only way to get around this problem is to talk directly to your tenants about the financial obligations of paying rent. Let them know the eviction guidelines and penalties that can be levied in case of long-term non-payments.  

2. Start a fine for late payments 

According to market reports, the average fine for late payment of rent is around 5% of the rent if the rent is due for over 5 - 9 days. These stats can vary a little between states and where your properties are located or whether they are commercial properties or residential. But penalties are a must. Otherwise, it opens up a floodgate of late paying tenants. 

Though many landlords and real estate business owners gave a lot of rent rebates during the pandemic, things are getting back to normal now. You need to set a concrete penalty policy and mention that in the lease agreement during tenant onboarding to avoid any future confusion.  

3. Use online and easy payment methods 

Online payment methods encourage a lot of tenants to pay up faster. Old school methods are sometimes time-consuming, like cash payments and cheques. Especially if you deal with a millennial or Gen Z group of tenants, students and such, then it is best to have online rent collection options. 

You can use a selection of technology in project management, like the Yardi or MRI software, to automate this process. Tenants can directly pay you through the rent collection portal, and they do not have to worry about cash payments. McKinsey data says that more th 82% of Americans are using digital payment methods. Your tenants may be one of them. Use the right technology selection to cater to this audience.  

4. You can also collect rent in person 

Though online payments are trending and faster, some tenants, especially the older generations like to pay directly to humans and not electronic machines. You must have an option for these tenants to pay in person. Also, if you or your representative shows up in person, tenants are more likely to pay up due to a direct moral obligation.  

5. Send automated reminders before the due date 

When you use property management software like Yardi or MRI to automate rent collection, it comes with its own benefits of sending reminders to tenants about due dates. You do not have to send individual reminders to them. The system will automatically keep reminding them and help them keep up with the timelines and get the money rolling on time.  

6. Screen tenants before onboarding 

There are many tenants who are habitually late payers and some who do not have any stable income to pay. You can surely identify the second set of people with tenant screening software. Before you onboard a tenant, it is better to do a thorough screening and background check to ensure the tenant has a stable source of income and enough financial stability to pay the rent. Otherwise, your business will suffer in the long run.  

7. Employee a property manager 

If you think running to and fro to collect all the due rent is becoming a burden for you, you can employ a property manager to take care of every task like rent collection. Having a human to contact and talk to directly will incentivize and push your tenants to pay on time rather than deal with a faceless business.  

8. You can set up a rent drop box in properties 

Due to the pandemic, many tenants who like to pay through offline methods have been finding it difficult to travel and pay rent. This has caused a lot of pending dues. It is a wise idea to set up a payment drop box in each of your properties where you rent out multiple units to ease the process.  

9. Start collecting rent through partial payments 

You can start taking payments in instalments throughout the month. This will help you get your money and also not put a lot of extra burden on your tenants. Due to the pandemic, it is better to go for partial payments when you understand that your tenants are struggling to make rent, but you also do not want to hand them an eviction notice.  

10. Go for the old-school rent collection with the cheques method 

You need to have a set goal before choosing your property management software. Plan your strategy and leadership to understand what you want to achieve and which functions you want to automate. 

• Do you want to automate back office accounting or want to employ an accountant for the job? 

• Do you have any advanced needs like construction management? Or does your company only deal in sales and involves no construction work?  

• What are your plans for budgeting and forecasting? Do you need advanced analytical budgeting and forecasting reports, or yours is a small business which follows a DIY process? 

These are questions you need to ask yourself and your team before you decide on your choice of software.  

You probably do not need many advanced features if you run a small real estate business and are just starting out. Yardi Breeze is the right fit in such cases. And if you are new to the use of technology in business, it is best to start at the basics and then scale up.  

If you have less number of tenants and only a few properties under your portfolio, then Yardi Breeze is the correct choice for you. If you do not have complex reporting and reconciliation work to handle, go for the Yardi Breeze. What are the other advantages of using Breeze? 

• A quick system set up within a few hours and easy to train employees 

• Live chat support from the Yardi team to help set up the system with additional support 

• Mobile and remote work friendly 

• Budget-friendly pricing based on the type of property you manage 

• It can be used together with your existing software system 

• The user interface is simple and can be quickly understood 

• Tenant communication and rent collections become super fast 

1. Save time and communicate remotely 

Real estate property managers can save a lot of time by using the IVR system by doing all scheduling, screening, and setting up appointments remotely. As property managers or business owners, you might have thousand different places to be or crises to take care of; that is why having the IVR will help you automate the other tedious yet important tasks. You can do all the regular repetitive communication on the go with a proper IVR and not have to worry about reaching all properties and tenants physically or with individual calls.  

2. Better your tenant relations 

When your IVR calling system promptly responds to your tenants and prospective customers, their time feels valued. Many of the problems can also be solved with automated responses; if not solved, then IVR systems can easily schedule appointments or time slots with property managers to connect the tenants through.  

As human psychology goes, Salesforce research data on customer service found that 78% of customers get back in business with you even after a mistake, only if your customer service is up to the mark. That is exactly why you need an IVR system; if you respond to customers on time and resolve their issues, you will see lesser tenant turnovers and more lease renewals.  

3. Efficient work and fast disaster recovery 

IVR gives your tenants enough space to self-serve themselves on some needs and leaves feedback too. And IVR systems can handle multiple such calls at the same time, unlike conventional phone systems and that helps in the efficient management and faster problem resolution. Your strategy and leadership need to take this into account when they make a selection of technology in project management.  

How does it help in disaster recovery? You can set up a separate IVR line during a time of crisis or during year-end CAM reconciliation work to take in the extra load of calls and inquiries from customers to manage the load. All customers will be well looked after and also speed up the resolution process.  

4. Better revenue generation 

A single IVR system will handle multiple calls at the same time, which humans and conventional phone systems can not. When you put the overall communication system on an IVR system, then you save a lot of money on overhead costs. You can cut down on labor and employee people to answer the scheduled and only important calls that get filtered through the voice integration system. 

Also, responding to customers quickly will get you more business when customers get a better idea about your credibility and agile responsiveness.  

5. Hassle-free communication 

There are a thousand different questions that a tenant or customer can have; for a human employee to resolve that, it would need them to go through huge bulks of documents to get to the root of things. They can have the most distinctive and unique questions to ask, like why a particular heating duct in their apartment does not work or gas outlet specifications. Having all this information memorized isn’t a humanly possible task; that is why proper technology implementation can help with it. But an IVR system allows for much information to be pre-set, and hence it allows you to find the exact information you need in no time and minimizes the waiting time of customers. 

6. Keep track of communication with clients 

Any proper IVR system has a provision to take down client feedback; keeping track of these can help companies better their services. You can see and analyze which strategies work best for you, which properties or buildings and assets have the highest number of tenant complaints, etc., to know your potential areas of improvement. This will also help in further budgeting and forecasting for the company and help scale growth. 

At tourist hotspots, real estate is being changed and reimagined in many different ways. Here is a quick view of the significant changes that are happening and the ones affecting this shift.  

• More properties and land allotted for hotels 

Tourism brings in instant profit, and hence many real estate owners, be it building owners or property owners, are now reassigning their resources towards tourism real estate. The transaction in tourism and hospitality is quicker, and this industry is booming. But this has a highly negative impact on the land, and the effects are long-term and harm the environment in more ways than one. According to statistics published by The World Counts, tourism alone degraded more than 1,747,493 square kilometers of land to date. Added to that, the carbon footprint of tourism alone is more than 8%, and most of it is not eco-friendly.  

• Residential houses converted to BnB 

According to Forbes news reports, each 1% increase in Airbnb listings leads to an instant 0.018% increase in rents and a 0.026% increase in local house prices. These numbers are scary for residential tenants and house owners. Why? New Airbnb properties are listed every other minute, and if the property prices keep increasing in relation to them, soon they will be off the roofs.  

Mixed-use properties are mostly rising due to the new lifestyle choices of the present economically-active generation. This primarily includes the millennials and Gen-Z, who have demanding jobs and not enough time to spare for other activities.  So they demand to have these activities right at their doorstep to get the best of both worlds.  

According to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey on community and transportation preferences, they found that more than 62% of millennials prefer to have all amenities within walkable distances. Beyond that, there are 5 more factors driving this trend. Take a look.  

1. Urban development 

Mixed-use properties are one of the major developments in nearly all metropolitan urban habitats like Ohio, Boston, Texas, and more. The high migration of millennials and baby boomers into these cities due to employment and other opportunities are increasing by the day. Even neighboring suburban areas are getting urbanized, and properties offering amenities beyond simple residences are becoming increasingly attractive.  

2. Change in lifestyle 

Big brands and chain retail stores are no longer the only places of attraction for millennials. They are increasingly indulging in one-off boutique and localized stores. Providing these services under mixed-use properties is helping this generation sustain this lifestyle change.  

3. Concept of co-working spaces 

With the abundance of technology selection available for the new generation, their office attendance decreases. Extended remote work is also playing a part in this trend. But not everybody prefers to work from home constantly; some prefer to work from casual workspaces like co-working spaces. Residencies that offer additional facilities of leisure combined with workspaces are becoming a rage.  

4. More sustainable 

More and more CRE business owners and investors are going for more sustainable real estate options for a more eco-friendly business approach. According to Forbes news reports, the real estate produces more than 40% of the total global carbon emissions. Having more facilities under one complex helps bring down the overall carbon footprint of managing properties when people cut down on their everyday travel due to most resources being available at walkable distances.  

5. Demand for homes closer to work 

Research says due to the advance in remote work, employees are saving thousands of dollars on the commute, and now they desire to live close to work or even live in the same complex as their offices. This allows them to save up on a lot of money and reassign that to rent or other basic amenities, increasing the demand for mixed-use properties.  

• Broader appeal 

Your properties can now appeal to a larger audience and collect more on rent from families to single working people and even migratory working class. This has a higher chance of selling if your property can cater to a larger audience.  

• Integrated management 

There are multiple different types of facilities and amenities to manage in a mixed-use property. You need proper property management software to get the job done. Integrating software like Yardi or MRI can help solve this. They can manage residential, commercial, and retail properties at the same time and streamline your tenant and property management work. You will not need to run to and fro to different properties to get the job done; you can do all of it from your user dashboard, even from remote locations.  

• Diversified business 

A mixed-property has a diversified business portfolio, so it can help you sustain during tough economic crises. You can collect revenues from multiple avenues without solely depending on one source. Even if your retail does not work, your residents are still there or vice versa.  

There are some slight disadvantages of a mixed-use property. But they can be easily mitigated if addressed at the right time, and your leadership and strategy are planned accordingly.  

• Can cause parking issues 

Due to multiple facilities being under one community, the number of cars will increase; with poor management, this can become a real issue. Retail shops and family parking should be managed separately to avoid any hindrance.  

• Residential tenants might be agitated 

Here is a list of the biggest challenges faced in the digital transformation of the real estate industry. Check them out to understand them better and stay on top of them. Learn about them and plan ahead to mitigate them before they curveball into a major business issue and hamper your growth.  

1. Having no long-term vision  

Having the right selection of technology might seem like a rising trend in the real estate industry. But make sure you have a vision for what your goals are from the technology implementation. Without the right long-term vision, technology can become a redundant investment and lead to a lot of monetary and time loss. You need to read useful customer reviews about the software you choose, make sure that the tech features are customizable according to your business needs, and then start integration.  

2. Employees not adapting to the technology 

Making all employees and stakeholders agree to the new technology selection and training them properly to use the tech is an essential part of the integration. As a real estate property manager, do you see your staff is reluctant to adapt to new tech and is not motivated enough to make the shift? This is a common problem among real estate businesses, and you need to plan your strategy and leadership in a way that you make your staff understand the need for the tech. You also need to take reviews from your staff about their every need in work process automation and the hurdles they face. This will help put all the stakeholders on the same page and streamline the automation process.  

3. No proper budget for tech investments 

Tech investments need a lot of planning, but it also needs a proper budget for you to understand which investment works best for you. It can be a major challenge if you do not understand your technology selection positively impacts your business ROI. Budgeting and forecasting beforehand is the best way forward in such a scenario.  

4. Not understanding which tech works best 

You need a technology consultant to advise you on which software works best for your particular business. Your tech implementation partner must provide customized solutions to your needs to complete the integration. Why? Statistics published by Harvard Business Review says that more than 55% of technology selection like CRM software fail to produce the accurate results they were implemented for.  

5. Not integrating data and workflow systems 

Integrating a project management software without data integration and automating workflow systems is a major pitfall. The right technology selection in project management can streamline your whole data management and back office work to ease your business management plans. A tech like Yardi or MRI software can easily integrate your data and automate your back office work, including accounting and repetitive and tedious project management tasks. You need to make sure your software solution provides this pre-integration.  

6. Concern about data security of new tech 

The biggest challenge during new tech integration is the data security issues is cyber security during data migration. Without proper integration, a lot of data can be lost in the process and create a lot of problems for your business. But most cloud services are secure; you need to make sure your software provider is doing good integration work to ensure no data is breached.  

7. Client interaction is changing 

Due to technology implementation, the pattern of client interaction is also changing. Face-to-face interactions are decreasing. A significant part of the real estate business was about direct client interaction, but with the right technology selection, you can make client interaction a constant thing. With things like RPA chatbots and CRM software, you can constantly be in touch with your customers and never lose track of your clients.  

8. Teamwork might suffer without the right tech