What’s the Best Rental App for Real Estate Investors?

Smart real estate investors are looking for the best rental app to help them in their day-to-day property management tasks. Find out what that is.

Managing a real estate business, especially when you have multiple properties, can be a very daunting task from the outset. Therefore, it’s only right that a smart real estate investor—like you—looks for the best rental app to help them in their day-to-day property management tasks.

Technology has revolutionized how we do our daily activities. For example, five decades ago, it would have been hard to imagine someone spending their entire day staring at a screen. Today, this is the reality for a majority of the world’s population. Because of this change in our lives, many people are constantly looking for ways to add convenience to their lives.

In the real estate world, many tasks can be arduous, especially when done manually. However, we now have numerous apps for almost every real estate task, be it finding the most suitable property for your investment, calculating mortgage payments, estimating fix-and-flip costs, and even e-signing documents to close real estate transactions.

Today, we want to look at some of the reasons why you need to use rental apps for your real estate investment and the best rental app you can use to your advantage.

Why Do You Need Rental Apps?

Chances are that you already shop online, connect with friends on social media platforms, use music streaming apps, and even read news on mobile apps. As a savvy real estate investor, you’ll also want to organize your rent payments, maintenance requests, and even sign documents online. 

Think about it from a tenant’s perspective. Millennials and Generation Z now make up a huge percentage of all renters. According to CNBC, this generation is more likely to use online mobile apps for banking, shopping, connecting with friends, and ordering food. With these factors in mind, a paper-based rental system will only seem outdated to your target tenants.

Listed below are the key reasons why you need to use the best rental app today:

• Collecting rent: One of the most significant benefits of using a rental app is online rent collection. The best property management apps will allow your tenants to set up automatic rent payments. This benefits you as a landlord since it minimizes the chances of your tenant missing their payments. Also, money lands into your account faster since the process is digitized. Forget about checking the mail for rent checks, having to go to your bank to deposit them, and waiting for the checks to clear.
• Online rental applications and leases: Online rental solutions allow prospective tenants to complete their rental applications online. It will save you a lot of time since you won’t have to set up a physical meeting with your prospect and drive to the location to collect the signed application or lease. To save you even more time, some of these online solutions have tenant screening requests.
• Sign documents online: In today’s world, digitally signed documents with electronic signatures are just as legal as paper documents with ink signatures. Signing your documents electronically saves you a lot of time and money. Additionally, it’s more convenient compared to paper documents. A single property management app can handle the entire application and leasing process. Besides, you save the document digitally, meaning you’ll never lose it.
• Maintenance and repair requests: Another advantage of using rental apps is that they allow your tenants to send repair requests. Online requests are one of the best ways to stay on top of property maintenance. You can track repair requests and connect with contractors. Some apps even have a communication module to streamline communication with your tenants.
• List your property online: Once a tenant has moved out and you have a vacancy, a digital rental app makes it easier for you to list your property online. You can syndicate your property details to rental listing sites when you learn that a tenant is moving out. You no longer need to spend a lot of time manually listing a vacant unit on multiple listing platforms. 

The benefits of using rental apps don’t end there. Some of the rental solutions allow you to offer virtual tours of your unit. Since many interested tenants want to see quality pictures and videos, you can use virtual tours to showcase your property’s best features without having to spend a lot of time scheduling and attending physical showings. With this feature, you also won’t waste your time with tenants who may not be serious about leasing your apartment complexes.

Related: 7 Real Estate Investor Websites to Use

The Best Rental App for Real Estate Investors in 2022

If you’ve been around the real estate investing scene for a while, you must be already aware that there are a plethora of rental apps out there for you to choose from. While most of them may share the same features, they also have a set of distinct tools that make them stand out from each other. This means that, depending on what features you’re looking for, some may be more suitable for you than others.

Here are some of  the best rental app solutions for real estate investors in 2022:

Zillow Rental Manager

As we’ve mentioned, manually listing your vacant unit on rental listing platforms can be a grueling task. This is because there are many websites where prospecting tenants go to look for rentals. You want to get your investment property in front of as many people as you can.

Zillow is one of the leading real estate resources and is popular as an apartment finder. One of its best features is the Zillow Rental Manager app which allows you to simultaneously post an ad on several sites. This feature lets you cast your net wider and more efficiently. With this app, you can have your ad on sites such as Zillow, HotPads, Trulia, and other top rental platforms. 

When creating your rental listing, you simply enter your property’s details and upload your high-quality photos. Once done, you can send it out for the entire world to see. Unlike other apps, this one is absolutely free.

However, there’s a catch. If you upload your ad on Monday on this landlord app and hundreds of other property managers upload theirs on Tuesday, you would find your property at the bottom of the apartment list. The only way to get around it is by re-submitting your ad on a daily basis. The process is time-consuming, which might beat the sense of convenience.

Related: Should You Invest in Zillow Homes for Sale? Here’s How to Evaluate

Property Buddy

This is one of the best solutions for property managers handling multiple rental homes. With this app, you can upload details—such as valuation, taxes, and others—for each property, and then track payments and lease information in an intuitive dashboard.

Property Buddy can be a great solution even if you’re working with a property management agency and you’re renting out multiple rental houses. Remember, with any business, you should keep track of the money coming in and out of your pocket.

This app allows you to view the performance of your properties together, or dive in and see how each of them is performing individually. It also has an option for you to quickly track tax-deductible expenses and travel costs. 

Homestyler

While most rental property apps focus on the business side of being a landlord or property manager, this app brings a different perspective to the table. Homestyler helps you make your property more aesthetically pleasing. In short, it helps you take a lot of renovation guesswork out the window. 

How does Homestyler work? Simply take pictures of your property’s interior, upload them to the app, and see how it would look with various designs. For example, if you want to renovate your floor, you can take your floor’s pictures, upload them on the app, and see how it would look with hardwood or tiles. Similarly, you can select a wall and see how different paint samples would look in your house. You can even insert furniture to suggest different house arrangements to prospective tenants.

Be wary if you should decide to use Homestyler to virtually furnish your home for online ads. Your listing could potentially look fake or cheesy, especially for furniture. If you choose to use it for advertisements, consider only using it for changing the wall colors, the floors, and maybe the lighting. 

Thumbtack

As a landlord, you should always be prepared for unforeseen events. This includes leaking roofs, broken heaters, or even reckless tenants. You can always get an emergency call when you least expect it. 

Thumbtack helps you easily search for contractors in any field. The main advantage of this app is that you can send out your request to numerous professionals, and then they send you a bid to win your project. You can get a great maintenance and repair deal out of this app, as you look at the credentials of several contractors simultaneously.

We advise that you have one professional to carry out your property’s maintenance. This allows you to have some consistency in this chaotic line of work. However, your go-to person may not always get there as quickly as needed. In this event, you may need a backup plan. This is where Thumbtack comes in handy.

Mashvisor

We decided to round up our list with the best rental app for real estate investors. Mashvisor is the best real estate platform for both newbie and experienced real estate investors. The platform can help you:

• Find suitable properties using Property Finder
• Calculate cap rate and find good cash on cash return using the Investment Property Calculator
• Carry out market analysis using the Heatmap tool

The platform also enables property managers and landlords to manage their duties. Mashvisor uses AI and machine-learning algorithms to help real estate investors carry out the following tasks:

Qualify Leads

Many new real estate professionals find themselves wasting a lot of time and energy on potential leads who aren’t serious or ready to make a move. This is why you need Mashvisor’s Mashboard for proper real estate lead qualification. 

Other than generating homebuyer leads, this is also the best rental app for quickly and accurately qualifying potential tenants. This will help you focus on prospects who’re most likely to become tenants. Mashboard automatically provides all the demographic data you need with each prospect.

Each lead profile includes the following vital information:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Email
• Budget
• Property type, such as duplex for sale
• Age
• City
• State
• Homeowner or renter

Stay Up-to-Date

Savvy real estate investors and property managers are those who stay up-to-date with trends in the property management industry. Remember, the real estate industry is growing every year and there are millions, if not thousands, of new entrants. As such, you want to stay updated so you can stay at the top of the game.

For example, you want to know what the new generation of tenants is looking for in a rental property and property managers. This way, you can renovate your property or tweak your services to suit your target market.

While there are many ways of staying updated, such as attending industry events or networking through online platforms, one of the best ways to do this is by keeping up with our blog.

If you’re just beginning in this field and have little knowledge on this topic, our blog has you covered. Our topics range from how to invest in real estate, how to become a property manager, what property managers do, and the skills you need to manage your properties effectively.

Our blog is also a source of data analytics for both traditional and short-term rental strategies. For example, our data shows that Alaska is the leading state for Airbnb business with a cash on cash return of 6.24%.

Key Takeaways

Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned real estate investor, using rental apps will significantly boost your productivity. Other than streamlining your day-to-day activities, the best rental app will make complex and time-consuming property management tasks easy and fast. However, not all rental apps will do all these tasks. You need to find the best rental app to put you miles ahead of your competition.

Mashvisor tools are the best answer to your search. Mashvisor takes pride in helping real estate investors stay ahead of their property management tasks.

To learn about how Mashvisor can help you in your real estate investing journey, sign up for a 7-day free trial now, followed by 15% off for life.