Tenancy Tip Thursday - Owners Portals

Hiya's,

The last few tips have all been about the rules, which makes most people a little bit sleepy

How many of you have access to owner portals? How many of you use them? They vary a lot in availability and appearance depending on which software your Property Manager is using. They can save both yourself and your property manager a lot of time, since all the information you need is at your finger tips 24 hours a day any where in the world.

For privacy purposes, these screenshots are from a demo agency and feature a fictional property. These screenshots are all from the landlord's (not property manager's) perspective. So this is what you (as the owner or landlord) would see.

The first step is you get a link in your email , which you click on.

Then it shows you your portfolio of properties, in this case the fictional person only owns 1 property (more would show in a list if you owned more properties). You click on the property you want to look at:

Once you do that (I'll post this in separate bits since it wouldn't all fit in this post), you go into that property and you can see it's address and it's current balance. It also shows the money in and out for the month. It has tenant details, ie their name, amount, the date when they're paid up to and that of their next renewal.



Scrolling down from there you can see the last 12 months financial performance of the property, jobs (which is the current status of any maintenance / repair work that has a current work flow status in the system) and all the recent inspections reports which you can open up as PDF (this particular property only has 1 in the system).

The last part shows the documents associated with the property. In this property's case, that is just the monthly statements which you can open up by clicking on. This section would also show any documents the property manager has scanned, such as bills they'd paid on your behalf.


So what do you all think?

 

I just signed up with a property manager a few weeks ago.
I just logged onto the portal for the first time now as this post reminded me they have one.
Nothing very exciting look see yet.

 

The property managers i use don't have one available,but I think it would be useful. If nothing else to maintain the records of monthly statements, EOFY statements and routine inspections (for those people who don't save and file their PDF's each month!)

I'm not sure that it is something that I would necessarily pay any more for though, as it personally wouldn't benefit me as much, but I certainly have clients that would benefit and it would make my job easier at the end of year. For those that have access to this is do you pay a higher management fee?

David, is this just an extension of the software that RE Agents already use or would there be extra investment required form the agents point of view, where they would need to pass on the costs appropriately?

 

Yep, part of the same software so shouldn't cost you any additional.

Note that all agencies use different software though, so some software's don't have that functionality or their portal will look differently.

 

If I were using an agent I would definitely appreciate this sort of additional service/access.

 

That looks awesome! Might need to put some pressure on our property manager for something like this.

cheers,
Inertia.

 

Looks great, right up my alley. Unfortunately my current PropMgrs don't offer this...
Thanks for the post @D.T. - I didn't even know this was an thing. I'll keep an eye out for it moving fwd now.

 

I love the sophistication of an owners dashboard with all information in one place...thanks for sharing!

 

I for one would be keen on something from an owners perspective and not from a property manager's perspectives.

For example, it can have a calendar function for all the properties requirements and send reminder to you. It should have a book keeping function that manages every type of expenses, from bank interest payments to strata to msc expensss. It would have a upload function to scan receipts and store them online and at the end of the day. Would be able to compile a report on for taxation purposes,which would already include the various pages of receipts required. The tax agent could have an access to download for view.

I would not want to deal with multiple portals that facilitates the property manager but inconvenience the owner.

Unless the PM manages ALL my properties.

 

I'm a fan, one of my PMs uses this program I think.
Great to be able to access and retrieve information required quickly, I also like the red/green bar graph of monthly cashflow and being able to look up old inspection reports easily. I wish all agencies would use something like this.
I use one agency in regional NSW where I have only just got them to stop posting me monthly statements after 4 years and email them!

 

DT and I use the same system now, I switched a couple of months ago - one of the selling points was the ownership portal.

I've had great feedback since switching over, and whilst there are some that will never use it, it's still good to have.

 

I have 4 property managers, one of whom uses a portal. Until they can all get on the same page I prefer email or postal correspondence.

 

Per the other threads, one particular portal (Maintenance Manager) tends to come with lots poorly written emails recommending safety audits (PropertySafe Pro).

I find it quite tiring to receive emails that ask me for "We would appreciate a definitive “Accept” or ‘Decline” for the $140 per year OH&S report.

 

Yea, stay away from anything that's spammy or scammy

 

Interesting tidbit to add, if you've got properties across multiple property managers who use this software, it'll show your whole portfolio in the portal which is really cool!

@Lil Skater and @Andrew Hancock , property managers in Victoria and Queensland have mutual clients with me who have really benefited.

 

My PM doesnt have this technology. I wouldnt be that impressed if they do. Its the stuff they do to sort out problems that I value. ie unpaid rent. They chase it. Repairs they organise it efficiently and communicate it. The less I hear the better to be honest.

 

Hi Paul,

You make good points and that is absolutely the core of the what should be done properly with an excellent PM, however it's not mutually exclusive.

Having access to a multi-property portal doesn't mean you have to hear more about it as logging in is completely voluntary. It's just that a range of necessary and relevant information is there on hand when its needed. The feedback we get on the portal access is excellent as in the day and age where people want access to information immediately, this feature allows it.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

We've got one PM that looks after 2 of our IP's & uses a Property Portal of sorts, & it's great. We've got another, where we have 3 properties & have three passcodes (one for each property), and it's dreadful. I refuse to use it! In fact, it's so bad that I'm considering changing PM's over it. None of the other PM's use one.

 

Yeah the old system I used you had to have different email addresses if the owner had different bank details and didn't want it under the same ownership name (I hope that makes sense), was a complete pain!

The "new" one (not that new, had it over a year) is awesome. They keep making more improvements, I honestly had no idea that it would link up with properties across Australia and with different companies. Every other system I have ever used with a portal does not do that.

 

I'm currently developing a system that has owner portals (this type of platform is called multi tenancy software, where you have different groups having access and visibility to different data all using the same platform.) This would be one area where it's a challenge. If multiple PMs manages different properties which can often be the case, owners wanting to diversify their portfolio different states / locations, (also minimise land tax) for the same owner you have to ensure only one account gets created and linked.

I don't think it's difficult just need to check the table of owners to ensure the email doesn't already exist if it does exist add a new row to properties and don't make a new account.

If email address doesn't already exists then create a new account and generate password.