PropertyZar

Let’s face it, people usually do not enter a legally binding lease with the intention of breaking it. Sometimes life deals us challenges that conflicts with our current lease. Whether its job related, family or health issues. There is a plethora of situations that can arise that will have you asking the question, ‘How can I break my lease’.

Read your lease

Some leases provide an opt-out clause. You should review your lease carefully because you may already have an option spelled out for you.

Sub-Leasing

If your lease doesn’t provide an adequate opt-out option, check with the property manager or owner about sub-leasing the property. If the owner or landlord agree, keep in mind that (in most cases) you are still responsible for the remaining of the lease terms. Having a qualified tenant can be a win win for both you and the property manager.

Be Nice

If you have been a great tenant, ask the landlord about marketing the property to find another tenant. When one is found, then you can terminate

In order to fill your vacancies, you first need to know what renters want. That list can vary widely based on the type of rental property you have. Renters moving into an apartment will have different ‘wants’ then those moving into a single-family home.

Longer Term Renters

For those who are longer term renters, they may want to be near school or work, coffee shops, restaurants, work out facilities, parks etc.

Job Renters

If your renters are relocating (even temporarily) for work, they may have different wants. For example, in addition to the long-term renters wants, they may also want to be close to an airport and transportation services.

Depending on the area of your properties, you may want to include information about some of these ‘wants’ in your advertising copy. For example, if you are close to an airport but have not thought about corporate leases, include the fact that airports are just 10 minutes away.

Furnished Properties

Furnishing your properties can be a very lucrative option

Financial reports are a critical element for property managers and property owners. Without these reports, how do you know the financial health of your portfolio or a single property? Decisions are often made based on your current financial status.

General Accounting

Most general accounting applications are not designed for managing real estate properties. I’ve been a long time QuickBooks user, but QuickBooks doesn’t provide the breakdown that I need, at least not easily.

Some of the best property management software applications that include complete accounting, will provide you with the financial reporting, broken down in a meaningful way.

Let’s take a look at how PropertyZar provides financial reporting. As a property manager, you should be able to run any financial report based on property owner, a building or a single property (unit).

Profit & Loss Reports by Owner

With a good property management software, you can run P&Ls based on each owner, showing you all the numbers from

Open houses are a great way to generate interest as well as some urgency when it comes to renting your properties. They have been used by real estate agents for decades because they work, sort of. They say between 4-10% of sales contracts are a result of open houses. However, for rental properties, there are other benefits.

The Basics

First, let’s start with the basics. You must be prepared for a successful open house. Be sure to arrive early and setup in time. The property should be show ready. Meaning, fully cleaned, carpets shampooed, painted and all maintenance issues fixed. Remember, you want the best tenant and the best rent that you can get.

First benefit, you can consolidate your showings into a single trip and afternoon. It also can help generate some ‘buzz’ around your properties. To do it right, you need to plan well and advertise so that you have a good attendance. That is important to create the sense of urgency.

Keep in mind, if you have multiple rental properties, an open

You know the saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words. There is no denying the fact that great looking photos will help your marketing efforts. Renters are more inclined to choose a property that has a lot of photos with high quality.

What most renters do, is shop for rental properties and then imagine what their life would be like living there. Photos help the renter ‘imagine’. It’s a good idea to take multiple professional quality photos of each room from different angles. This helps paint a broader image for the renter to see and imagine living there and seeing the rooms from all angles.

Professional Quality

Notice I said ‘professional quality’ photos. Are these only produced from professional photographers? Not necessarily. With the higher quality cameras on the market and with a little practice, you can take decent quality photos yourself. If you are ‘camera’ challenged, then I recommend hiring a professional.

Your property class also should factor into your decision about a

I am a longtime user of QuickBooks. I’ve used it for all my companies since 1998. This BLOG highlights the PropertyZar accounting software as it pertains to property management.

QuickBooks – A Good Role Model

As we designed PropertyZar’s accounting, we wanted to make it as easy as QuickBooks. But we wanted to include all the accounting features needed for online property management accounting software.

QuickBooks and PropertyZar Accounting

With so many landlords and property managers familiar with QuickBooks (desktop), we paid special attention to designing PropertyZar’s accounting so that any user of QuickBooks would be able to transition with no training required.

Running Financials

We made running financials easier as well. If there is one thing lacking in QuickBooks is that it was not designed for property managers. So tracking finances per owner, building or a single property was not as easy as it could be.

PropertyZar accounting software made this easy. We configured it in such a way

Hedge Your Real Estate Investments

Real estate has been experiencing some phenomenal returns over the past several years. Even the stock market has been a long running bull market. Several factors play into this. Low interest rates as well as low inventory have benefited the real estate market.

Anyone who has studied markets understand that is it certainly cyclical and understanding where we are in the cycle is an educated guess by some at best.

It seems that investors are getting comfortable with higher risk and this long running prosperity. However, I would caution investors and “would be” investors to be aware of the eventual real estate market downturn. Look for investments that are not too sensitive to downturns. If you have been looking for investment opportunities, you no doubt have found it a bit harder to find the deals with highcap rates like there were a short few years ago.

When 7 or 8 cap rates were more common in the past, investors are getting more comfortable with cap

Raising rents is a question we see a lot. Should you or shouldn’t you. For those landlord’s or property managers that do raise rents, 2-4% seem to be the typical range.

Good Tenants

If you have good tenants who take care of your property, pay on time and all-around good tenants, raising their rent may push them to look for another place to rent.

Finding new tenants, especially good ones, is a costly endeavor and may not be financially prudent for an extra 2 or 3%.

Not So Good Tenants

However, on the other hand, if your tenants are not the best, maybe it’s worth losing them if you raise their rents. If they stay, fine. You gain a little extra profit for the extra work they bring to you.

Progressive Rent Increases

Residential leases vs Commercial leases are different. Commercial leases are more common for regular rent increases, but not always. Many commercial leases include progressive rent increases stipulated. If you use a property management software, often it will have the ability to

PropertyZar vs Rentec– Over the past several months we have been receiving numerous inquiries on how we compare to Rentec. In the past, PropertyZar has been compared to some of the other larger platforms such as Appfolio, Buildium and Yardi. With the influx of inquiries for comparison to Rentec, we realized it was our pricing that is the basis for these comparison inquiries.

While some companies intended to focus on small portfolios (typically fewer features), the genesis of PropertyZar was to provide a robust property management web application for large portfolios, but with an entry level price for the smaller portfolios.

There is nothing wrong with targeting smaller, middle or larger portfolios. It’s just a company’s preference and the vision the founders have for the company.

PropertyZar Vs Rentec Price Comparison

PropertyZar Vs Rentec Feature Set Comparison

There are numerous features throughout PropertyZar. These features make the user experience what it is. The features listed here

If you have been a landlord or property manager for any amount of time, you have experienced both good and bad tenants. We wish that all tenants would be great, but the fact is some are not.

Warning Signs of Bad Tenants

First, to help minimize the chances of getting a bad tenant, property owners and managers should always run the tenant background screening that is available in most online property management software. In addition to that, be sure to follow up with checking references, past landlords and employers. This is not a guarantee, but it will help in the weeding out process. Here are some indicators that you are probably aware of:

• Difficult attitude and often threats or talk about lawsuits
• Regularly delinquent
• Leaves in the middle of the night
• Leaves the property in a mess

It’s unfortunate that these people exist but you can be better position to handle these types of tenant behaviors.

Attitude and Threats of Lawsuits

Make sure you understand the lease completely. These types of