How to Run Your Own Rental Property Business From Your Phone

One of the biggest complaints landlords voice is a lack of time. They get into investing with the expectation that it’ll be a passive source of income, and it ends up eating at their schedule and leaving them with no free time to spend with family and friends.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If you want to save time and streamline your investments, it’s possible to run every aspect of your business from your smartphone. It just requires the right approach. 

Five Tips for Managing a Rental Property Business From Your Phone

It might sound too good to be true, but it’s utterly possible to run an entire rental property business via your smartphone. Here are some of the specific ways to make that happen.

• Load Your Phone With the Right Apps

There are plenty of good business apps on your phone’s app marketplace that will help you streamline mundane tasks and keep everything in order. Whether you want to post a property listing, collect rent, or summon a handyman to one of your units, there’s almost always an app that’s capable of handling it. 

There are too many apps to discuss in this article, but there’s one you may find super helpful. It’s called Zapier and it’s designed to connect other apps so you can create automated workflows.

In other words, you can have it automatically download attachments sent to your Gmail address, save a copy in a cloud drive folder, and then notify you by SMS. It’s a pretty amazing tool that’s definitely worth checking out.

• Store All Documents in the Cloud

Every door you own will come with piles of paperwork. There’s paperwork associated with the property, taxes, financing, lease agreements, forms, etc. If you aren’t careful, the paper trail can become disorganized.

But even if you stay organized, you probably have all these documents tucked away in a filing cabinet or on a hard drive. The problem with this is that you can only access these documents when you’re within reach of the filing cabinet or hard drive. This makes it tough to run the business while you’re traveling or on the road.

A better option is to store your documents in the cloud. By creating individual property folders on a cloud drive, you give yourself the power to send, receive, and retrieve documents from any device at any time (including your phone). It’s a game-changer!

• Hire a Virtual Assistant

Are there small tasks you perform on a daily basis that are necessary but aren’t worth your time? You could hire a private virtual assistant to do these things for you. They typically charge only a few bucks an hour.

For example, you could hire a virtual assistant to manage your email inbox and filter rental applications so you only see the ones that are pre-qualified. Or you could hire a virtual assistant to post content to your social media profiles so you always have a steady stream of posts on your feeds.

• Work With a Property Manager

Virtual assistants are great for small tasks, but you could hire a property manager to take on the bigger tasks that require expertise and experience. Working with a property management company allows you to automate sensitive processes like tenant screening, rent collection, and even maintenance coordination. Best of all, you only need a phone to stay in touch with your property manager.

• Create a Tenant Portal

The days of having to drive by our rental properties to collect payments are behind us. You can automate nearly every property management process by setting up an online tenant portal. 

Online tenant portals can be used to collect rent, process repair requests, store lease agreements, and handle almost any other aspect you like. When paired with a property manager, this combination will save you hundreds of hours every year.

Reclaim Your Time and Freedom

It’s time for you to stop being a reactive landlord who has your schedule overrun by last-minute requests and “emergencies.” Instead, take control of your life by developing a more intentional approach.

When you optimize your business so it can be run with nothing more than a smartphone, the entire world opens up before your eyes. Take action sooner rather than later!