If you ever get the feeling that people spend a ton of time with their eyes on their phone screens, that’s because you’re right! In fact, 47% of prospects are going to check their phones during a property tour to test their connection. And over half of all renters want the ability to pay rent from a mobile friendly tenant portal.
This is all to say that if your property management business doesn’t prioritize mobile access, you’re missing out on a feature that most tenants want.
We put together a few more reasons property management companies of all sizes need to be mobile friendly.
1. Quickly take and upload photos
What’s the first thing your prospect will see when they find your website or property listings? That’s easy! They’re going to see an eye-catching photo of your space. That first impression is so important, which is why you need to keep your photos up to date, reflecting the latest amenities and features that will help you fill it quickly.
Yardi Breeze lets you take and upload photos on the spot. Since Breeze is mobile friendly, you can even use your smartphone to do it. This will save you and your staff precious hours so everyone can spend more time managing and less time fussing over photography.
Read: 6 Mobile Photography Tips For Property Managers
2. E-sign leases from anywhere
Your renters are going to love the ability to e-sign their leases. This is especially true for people who are out of town or simply too busy to make it into your office. Electronic signatures are easy for you to keep track of, since they’re in the cloud. This also makes it easy for tenants to find and reference their leases as necessary.
Updating the lease is as simple as sending an email, which means you don’t have to interrupt anyone’s day to have them sign, renew or update their lease agreement.
3. Respond faster to tenants
Mobile friendly property managers can always get in touch with their tenants. When you get a maintenance request or other alert, you and your staff will know right away. While desktop notifications are useful, you’re not always at your computer. Mobile alerts let your respond faster when you get an email or phone call.
Likewise, since your tenants are probably using smartphones to communicate, you’ll get faster responses from them too.
4. Keep up with social media
We’re not suggesting you use social media to keep up with the Kardashians (at least at work). But you can use it to keep track of your online reviews. If you have notifications turned on, you’ll know when someone sends a message or leaves a comment on your page.
Sometimes, social media works better on your phone. Facebook is easy to use on either desktop or smartphone/tablet, but Instagram is specifically designed to be mobile friendly and doesn’t offer all its features in its desktop and tablet versions.
When you stay active on social media, you can better manage your online reputation, responding to feedback quickly and professionally.
5. Track maintenance progress
Other than when they pay rent, tenants are most likely to contact you when they have a maintenance request. Whether you have a one property or hundreds, unless you’re on-site and a stone’s throw away, it can be hard to see exactly what the issue is.
Yardi Breeze lets your tenants snap a picture of the problem and upload it via their portal. Property managers can access this information from anywhere and contact the appropriate vendor to fix the issue. You’ll be able to stay in touch with the tenant before, during and after the job is complete.
6. Send reports to owners quickly
When your property management business is mobile friendly, it’s easier to send reports to owners. You could be sipping piña coladas from a poolside cabana in Las Vegas while you send individualized monthly reports to owners in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
You’ll also be able to send texts and emails to your owners, making communication fast and simple.
7. Mobile friendly is the future
It’s expected that by 2025, almost three quarters of the global population will use nothing but their phones to browse the internet. As you can imagine, if your business isn’t mobile friendly by that time, you’re going to miss most of your potential tenants.
One more way we keep you mobile friendly
Yardi wants to help you keep your business mobile friendly, search engine friendly and user friendly. We can do all this by making a professional website for your business. Your property management company (and of course, your properties) will be easier to find when people look up vacant units or commercial buildings in your area.
If you don’t have a website, or your current one isn’t what it should be, we have good news for you: You’re already in the right place! Ask for a free demo to see a sample website for yourself.
