Rentec Direct - Property Management Software

Anybody who reads my blogs knows I've been very happy with Google Voice ever since it's launch a few years back.  Just see any of these articles:

How Google Voice Can Help Landlords

Followup and Detailed Review of Google Voice

Google Voice Opens the Flood Gates Today

Google has done a TREMENDOUS job with Google Voice and I continue to use it daily for my personal voicemail and call forwarding.  I've found however that more and more recently when calls route through google voice they don't ring my phones or the call gets cut-off prematurely.  This is not a huge deal with my personal calls, it's infrequent enough to be tolerable and the benefits of GV on my personal calls outweigh this drawback; however, since the issue has persisted intermittently for months and Google has no customer service or technical support to contact regarding the issue I've thrown in the towel for business calls.

My goals were to keep the same distributed infrastructure our employees are used to.  Everyone may have one or two phones, a Skype voice account, plus a cell phone, that they want to be contacted at.  Google Voice would forward through these with ease.  I wanted to maintain this functionality, as well as having a permanent record of all voicemails.  After much research, trials, and quality testing - the answer is Grasshopper!

Grasshopper supports all of the features I used with Google Voice.

• Custom call routing to an unlimited number of phones, check.
• Online permanent record of all voicemails, check.
• Visual voicemail - although I haven't yet tried this.  They provide the option of human transcription at a cost too which would probably be more reliable than GV's transcription.

And Grasshopper's virtual phone system adds these great features which I'm already using.

• Multiple inbound phone numbers (GV only supported one)
• Virtual PBX - Yes, this is GREAT.  I can have a real call queue: "Press 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc".  Based on the callers entry the call can be routed to different phones.  Each queue has it's own set of forwarding numbers.  In addition, each employee gets an extension for direct calls.  Couldn't do any of thise with GV.
• Built in eFax support.  I used to pay another efax company to process electronic faxes for us, but this is now included with Grasshopper.
• You can upload recordings, including professionally recorded MP3 files.  GV required you record your own over the phone lines which always ended up being a low quality recording.
• Real customer service.  I've called three times, and every time the phone was picked up in less than 30 seconds with a very helpful and well trained rep on the line.

Thus far I'm very pleased with our choice to switch over from GV to GH.  Grasshopper however does have a cost, where GV is free.  However, since we provide an 800# for all of our customers to call it turns out we're actually saving money and improving our phone system and image simultaneously.  How?  I used to pay an 800 service to forward inbound 800 calls to our GV number.  The cost was 6.9c/minute (I know, we were getting robbed).  With GV they handle the 800 # and the rate we pay is closer to 2.5c/minute.  So yes, we've improved our phone system and dropped our 800# phone bill nearly in half.  Can't squawk at that!

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords.

I read the following the other day..

In response to complaints from tenants that more and more landlords are requiring rental payments be made only online, California lawmakers are considering a bill that may dictate how landlords collect rent.

“A growing number of landlords are no longer accepting checks or money orders from tenants,” says Sen Ted Lieu.  “Instead, they have begun to change rental agreements to require tenants – including the elderly, disabled and poor – to pay their rent online.”

The issue came to light late in 2011 when hundreds of tenants in apartment complexes in Los Angeles objected when the property-management group notified residents of a 300-unit complex that the only way they could soon pay rent was online.

Current law does not specify how rent is to be paid. The new bill revises the law to prohibit landlords from requiring online only rental payments.

So while I'm in absolute favor of adding payment options to tenants, taking payment options away is a big mistake.  Here's some ideas on how to provide online payments successfully:

• Add it an an option, not a requirement.
• Add both online check as well as online credit card (with a fee).  Some tenants would rather charge rent to a credit card for a fee than risk being delinquent.
• Add an incentive for online or automatic payments, such as a $10/mo discount.
• Provide a method a non computer savvy person can take advantage of it, such as an authorization form which the property manager processes online.

Being a landlord is not just collecting rent and taking care of repairs, it is a customer service position.  Would a company dare think that removing payment options from their customers is going to increase customer satisfaction?  Not likely, and nor should a property manager.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

My home state of Oregon recently passed requirements stating that carbon monoxide detectors are required in buildings that either:

• Has an attached garage, OR
• Has a fuel burning appliances (furnace, etc)

California and many other states have also passed similar regulation requiring property owners (landlords) to install these devices.  Twenty-five states currently require carbon monoxide detectors, and the trend is spreading quickly.  In some cases the deadlines have already passed on states which have already approved legislation requiring detectors.

Do you own property, or are you managing someone's property, within the United States and have you already installed carbon monoxide devices according to your local regulation?  If you've answered NO, you could be in serious legal jeopardy.  Check out the following list of states and their regulations to see if your state has these requriements.  If so, take care of it right away.

Carbon Monoxide State Statutes

Don't stop there though.  Its not enough to just install it.  What if the tenant disconnects or damages it.  What if it's removed and they claim it was never there and an accident occurred.  It's best not to be in he said / she said situations when it comes to life threatening situations that carbon monoxide poisoning can cause.  If you install it yourself, take a picture of the unit installed and scan the receipt and store both in your rental software, or in a safe location.  If you hired it out, store the receipt and ensure the receipt states the address and work done, specifically stating that it was a CO2 detector being installed.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

The IRS recently did an audit of previous years tax returns and found out that landlords are cheating their taxes, whether they know it or not.  This audit was conducted because in August 2008, the Government Accountability Office stated that “at least 53 percent of individual taxpayers with rental real estate activity for Tax Year 2001 misreported their rental real estate activity, resulting in an estimated $12.4 billion of net misreported income.”

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a report in December 2010 recommending increased scrutiny of tax returns with rental real estate activity, estimating that the change could recover over $27 million in lost revenue over 5 years.

No matter how honest you are on your taxes, owning rental property is an audit trigger since these reports were issued.  Another area of high scrutiny by the IRS this year is landlords who are claiming to be a "real estate professional", which allows one to take the maximum passive activity losses.  This type of classification requires more than 50% of a landlord's working hours and 750 or more hours each year materially participating in real estate as developers, brokers, landlords or the like.  Look for the IRS to begin verifying these hours.

The federal government is starving, and they are looking for new income sources anywhere they can.  Increasing IRS audits has proven to be highly lucrative for the IRS in the past, and this year and future years it's extremely likely they will continue to expand the scope of what they are auditing.  If you do your taxes yourself and it doesn't appear to be crystal clear, I'd recommend consulting an experienced CPA.  If your CPA seems OK with "grey areas", be very cautious.  Don't risk it, audits are expensive even if you've done everything right.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

I have numerous friends and family in the area that I regularly have property management conversations with.  The most popular recurring topics are usually around how long X property has been vacant, or how bad X person’s last tenant was.  The bad stories are always far more fun to tell, or at least more entertaining to listen to, it seems.  It got me thinking though, I rarely have bad tenant stories to talk about, and I never have vacancies longer than a couple weeks.  As such, my fellow landlord’s stories are always far more interesting than mine.  My friends and family always ask how I get so lucky.  Somehow I’m not entirely sure luck has much, if anything, to do with it.  After speaking with fellow landlords, and some of our rental software users I’ve come to the conclusion that the following listings and policies can account for most renter and vacancy issues.

It starts with the listing.  Do your listings set expectations appropriately?  

For instance, if your listing states that you do tenant screening, this immediately weeds out most prospects who know they won’t pass a background check.  Conversely, if there is no mention of screening required everyone who cannot get approved elsewhere is going to apply for your property, only to use your time and energy to ultimately be rejected when you do the background check.

Do you charge an application fee?  Almost every state allows it and it is common practice as it pays for your screening expenses.  If you do, mention the application fee on the listing.  This will weed out all the applicants that can’t afford a small application fee.

Eliminating unqualified tenants at this step saves you the maximum amount of time and money.  Instead of showing the property to unqualified applicants, you can focus on fewer more qualified applicants.

On to the application.  Do you let your applicants cheat?

Whether you do online applications or paper applications, the application should be thorough and ask lots of pertinent questions.  The most basic of questions should include full contact information, SSN (if allowed), birth date, employer, at least 2 most recent landlords, previous rental details, emergency contacts, employment information, and common questions about criminal felonies and bankruptcies.  All this information should also be collected for any additional adults that will be in the home.  A prospective tenant not willing to fill out an application entirely is not a serious renter and grounds for disqualifying the applicant.  Also, if any answers do not match what you pull on the background reports, that is an instant red flag.

Don’t be a pushover.

Do you get phone fishers calling asking about your properties, only to ask before they’ve even seen the property if you will take a lesser amount?  The correct answer to that question any time before an application is returned and the property has been displayed, is always “NO”.  Considering a rent concessions before you’ve met the people and before they’ve seen the property tells the tenant you don’t have much confidence in the property.  This leads to “can I pay rent late again this month”, and “I was really hoping it would be OK if my 12 cousins from out of town could stay just a couple more months..”.   

If however, after you’ve met the tenants, if they have already passed your qualifications and need a concession to close the deal, that is the time to make a concession.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

California has passed a bill (SB 150) now disallows HOA's from changing the rules mid-game on a landlord by restricting rentals within the HOA.  This bill took effect January 1st.

An association which previously has no restrictions on rentals, that attempts to amend the HOA to then restrict the amount or percentage of rentals is now prohibited from doing so.  Such a change in bylaws will have no impact on existing owners unless the existing owners specifically provide their authorization.  The existing owner by default will get grandfathered into the pre-restriction rules.

It however does not protect the next owner of a home in the same association.  If a home is sold, the new HOA rules related to rentals will apply to the new owner and the previous owner must disclose the fact of the restrictions.

I have mixed feeling about this.  My first impression (as a Landlord) makes me think this is great!  If I bought a property in an association as an investment property, and later the association changed the rules which prevented me from renting my investment property that could be catestrophic to my cash flow.  On the other hand, I prefer smaller government and less government interference in my affairs.  An association is a mini-government in itself, and I generally trend towards wanting decisions to be at the smallest and most local form of government possible.  In this particular topic, I think property rights might trump my preference for local government though.

Thoughts?

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

More tax increases for property investors. =(  If only our reps would focus on tax reducing measures rather than tax increasing measures. That would make me happy.

I wrote about Google Voice a while back and provided a detailed review of google voice right after it was released to the public.  Time really does fly, as I'm shocked to see that was 3 years ago back in 2009.  Since that time, Google Voice has become a valuable part of mine and many of our client's process.

Here's a complication of great reasons landlords and property managers are using google voice:

1. It's free!  This goes without saying, you can't get much good stuff for free these days; however, google voice continues to be an exception.  You get a free phone number, free online storage, free voicemail, free texts (sms), and free transcription.
2. Documentation.  More than ever, tenants are communicating with landlords via text message.  Most phones do not permanently store text messages, and even those that do stand to risk being lost and that documentation goes away forever.  If you use google voice for your tenant communications, those text messages are stored forever.  Read more on how documentation is a property managers best friend.
3. Privacy.  Many landlords do not want their tenants having their home phone or cell phone numbers.  With google voice, you can provide this number and re-direct it to any phone of your choosing, to ring at your choosing.  Don't want to receive calls from 9pm - 6am, no problem.
4. Multiple destinations.  With google voice you can configure roll-over so if you (or your employee) is not available at one number it tries another, which could even be another person.  This is a fully automatic, and free, way to gain the capabilities of an expensive phone system.
5. Did I mention documentation?  Having a permanent record of voicemails and text messages is critical in todays litigious environment.  Save everything, and google voice makes it really easy for voicemail and text messages.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

I was pleased to read about Wisconsin proposing new rules which are actually in favor of landlords.  It's an increasing problem across the country where cities and counties are passing laws which could harm the very fabric that landlords rely upon to run their business.

Some examples of laws some localities have passed or plan to pass:

1. Prohibits or limits the landlord from obtaining or using various types of information about a tenant or prospective tenant, such as household income, occupation, court records, rental history, and credit information;
2. Limits how far back in time a prospective tenant’s credit information, conviction record, or previous housing may be considered by the landlord; or
3. Prohibits the landlord from showing a rental property to a prospective tenant, or from entering into a rental agreement for a rental property with a prospective tenant, while the current tenant is living there.

These laws proposed in Wisconsin prevents cities, towns, villages and counties within the state from passing their own local ordinances which restrict landlords in the above manners.

Obviously the local governments are attempting to protect tenants; however, it's entirely at the cost of landlords being able to run a business.  Somewhat akin to taking away the ability of a car buyer to be allowed to read reviews on the car before purchasing it.  Requiring them to purchase the car sight unseen, thereby just guessing if it's going to work well for them.

Taking away the very necessary screening tools that landlords need to rely on is a very very bad idea IMHO.  I hope these pro-landlord laws are a trend that continues and is adopted by more states.  I'm not thrilled about my city changing the rules mid-stream on me or my clients which prevent them from being able to run their business effectively.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides rental software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

Was just reading this this morning.  Really makes me wonder if it's a Christmas "gift" to tenants during the Christmas season, or a political maneuver of some sort.  Has anyone experienced them doing this in the past?  Is Fannie going to join in too?

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Freddie Mac announced it has ordered all evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family and 2-4 unit properties that had Freddie Mac mortgages to be suspended from December 19, 2011 to January 2, 2012.

“If the property is occupied, our foreclosure attorneys will suspend the eviction to provide families a greater measure of certainty during the holidays,” said Tracy Mooney, Senior Vice President of Servicing and REO at Freddie Mac.

The suspension will apply only to eviction lockouts related to Freddie Mac-owned REO properties and will not affect other pre- or post-foreclosure processes.

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

SOURCE Freddie Mac

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides rental software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.