What To Expect From Your Property Manager: Experience Keyrenter’s Landlord Onboarding Process
Your property manager’s job function starts from the moment an investor initiates contact, all the way through onboarding prospects as clients who wish to enjoy hands-free, peace of mind when it comes to the day-to-day management of their real estate investments. Following a process is crucial in setting landlords and PMs up for success and kicking off the partnership on the right track. Effective onboarding helps homeowners reevaluate their property through the eyes of a professional, get familiar with the market, and come up with the right strategy to maximize net operating income.
That said, the onboarding process varies depending on the property management company. To set the gold standard, in this article, we’ll go over Keyrenter’s 8-step onboarding process so you know what to expect from our Business Development Managers (BDMs) and ultimately your dedicated property managers; your main point of contact at Keyrenter Arkansas, and the person responsible for the day-to-day management of your property (if you choose to hire us).
Keyrenter’s Onboarding Process For Homeowners
Step 1: Discovery Call With A Local Expert
Our first step to a successful onboarding process is holding a Discovery Call which can take anywhere between 30-60 minutes, between homeowners and our local Business Development Manager (BDM). This call can be held either by phone or through video, depending on what you prefer.
The objective of this call is to get to know you, learn about your property and current situation, as well as your experience managing your portfolio or working with other property managers in the industry. During this call, we aim to gain a better understanding of your goals, objectives, and intended timeframe, and answer your questions about working with Keyrenter.
Doing this allows us to learn what challenges you’ve faced as a landlord that led you to consider Keyrenter as your future management solution. Our team will focus on explaining our services, addressing how we can solve any problem or alleviate pain points you are facing, along with breaking down our pricing structure, and how we aim to avoid the same issues and cater to your specific needs moving forward.
Lastly, this call will give you insight into our thoroughness and dedication, and allow you to learn a bit more about our staff, functions and responsibilities, systems, processes, standard operating procedures, and general philosophy for managing real estate.
Step 2: Free Rental and Comparative Market Analysis
Next, we’ll move on to the free Rental Analysis stage, where we aim to ensure expectations related to rental income are aligned. Our local BDM will perform an initial evaluation of your property using the information obtained from your discovery call, such as the property condition, notating any updates, and obtaining additional information from publicly available sources to produce a comparative market analysis. It is important to share with our BDM any upgrades and updates you have done to the property, so we can consider those when preparing the rental analysis, and providing you with an accurate report.
We also perform additional market research on the area, search our internal database, and compare it with similar properties that have been rented within the last 12 months, and within a 2-mile radius. Our team uses this information and our extensive industry knowledge to determine a realistic, competitive price to start the listing for your rental property. We base our estimates on the median of those comparative rentals we find.
Lastly, we’ll share our conclusions and a report with you to determine a rental price, answer any questions, and make sure we’re on the same page before continuing with an onsite consultation.
In the meantime, you can also research on your, own and arm yourself with market data using the Instant Rental Analysis tool found on our website.
Step 3: Onsite Consultation
Once we have an estimate of monthly rent, our local BDM will gladly book an Onsite Consultation to walk through the property, and see it in person. If your property is tenant-occupied, we can hold off on a visit, and conduct it in the event you decide to hire Keyrenter. If you are under contract to purchase a property, we advise you to get in touch with us before the inspection period ends, and with your permission, we can schedule a tour during your due diligence. Onsite consultations allow us to evaluate the true conditions of a property, and note any important details such as curb appeal, interior and exterior upgrades, age of systems, appliances, efficiency, and more.
Our BDM will take notes of important details, and photos if you request we obtain any repair estimates. They can also answer any questions you might have, point out items that must comply with Keyrenter’s Minimum Property Standards, and evaluate the estimated costs of preparing your house for rent. If the property is prepared already, we can agree on a competitive listing price, and explain what the next steps would look like if you decide to onboard your property with us.
Step 4: Work Estimates and Repairs
During the onsite consultation, our BDM will attempt to identify any repairs that may be needed before a tenant can move in, but do not worry; you won’t need to handle them alone. Suppose you choose to onboard with Keyrenter. Shortly after you sign up, our team will deploy a maintenance technician to complete an initial inspection of the property – unless the home is occupied – to better understand what, if anything, is needed to bring the property up to our Minimum Property Standards (adhering to Federal Housing Quality Standards).
Once we complete the initial inspection, our team will put together a list of items that need to be addressed, and you will have the option to leverage our network of trusted contractors to save time and money. When we have agreed on the scope and price of work, your dedicated Property Manager will coordinate with our vendors to complete the repairs, and you can rest assured that we are lining up the team to complete the work necessary to market your rental quickly.
You may be asking yourself: “Why is it so important to adhere to these standards before renting out my property?”. Simply put, ensuring a property is clean, safe, and well-equipped before looking for tenants increases the odds of finding a qualified, high-quality tenant that will stay for multiple years, improving your return on investment, and lowering your operating expenses on make-readies, as well as your overall vacancy costs.
Adhering to these Minimum Property Standards is required for us to onboard the property, market and advertise, and coordinate and facilitate showings. These include: securing railings to support the weight of adults; fixing doors and windows to function properly; and keeping the house’s appearance neat both on the inside and the outside. You can find our full list of standards here.
Step 5: Submitting Your Owner Property Information Document (OPID)
Once you’ve decided you’re moving forward with Keyrenter, we will share the Owner Property Information Document (OPID). The OPID is an online form we ask you to fill out, which provides our team with all necessary information for a smooth onboarding, and a successful partnership.
We’ll briefly ask you to provide details about the plan for this investment: what led you to want to rent the house, your experience working with other property management companies, and more information that’ll help us better understand your investor profile, expectations, and goals. Our team must get this information before the kickoff call with your dedicated property manager, and ask to be provided with as many details as possible. This reduces friction throughout the onboarding process and clarifies who is responsible for utilities (tenant or owner), rent thresholds, alarm code, instructions, whether or not you accept voucher tenants, and even the existence of a sprinkler system, so our team can plan to winterize if necessary.
If you bring on a property that is tenant-occupied, we ask that you fill out the Current Tenant form, provide us with the lease agreements, and any other information or documents you would like us to keep in their file. You can also connect us with your current Property Manager and we can coordinate the transition while keeping you in the loop on all communications we send them. With this information, we will not only onboard you and your property, but also reach out to the tenants, introduce ourselves, and provide them with a change in management letter so they know who we are, where, and how they can reach us, pay their rent, and submit maintenance requests.
Filling out the OPID takes around 15 to 20 minutes and is necessary to fully onboard your property. We suggest you have your property’s information handy when you are ready to complete it (updates, amenities, rent thresholds, insurance documents, etc.).
Step 6: Documents & Formalities
The last piece of paperwork we’ll need from you before we wrap up the onboarding process is our Property Management Agreement (PMA). This document contains information that formally defines the terms of our partnership as it relates to the management of your property; the scope of authority, communications, and compensation; and the protocols we have in place to handle specific situations.
The PMA also contains several attachments that you’ll need to read, fill, initial, and sign before submitting them back to our team. These are:
- A copy of our Minimum Property Standards; mentioned above.
- Your Form W9; is needed for our records to prepare 1099s at the end of the fiscal year and for your tax filing purposes.
- Information about any holding entity, authorized owners, and their contact details.
- The direct deposit payment information page with details about the financial institution you wish for us to deposit your monthly rental payments.
Once you have completed, initialed, and signed your Form W-9 (attached in the PMA as well), we ask that you add Keyrenter Property Management as an additional insured party to your homeowner’s insurance policy. This allows us to handle any claims and truly provide you with a hands-off experience in owning rental property.
Step 7: Kickoff Call
With paperwork and formalities now done, you will receive a welcome email from our team, explaining the next steps. We ask that you schedule a call with your dedicated property manager, who will act as your main point of contact at Keyrenter. Their calendar link will be provided, so you can schedule it for a time that is most convenient for you, and spend about 10-20 minutes reviewing all the information we have. We’ll re-align expectations as they relate to monthly rent, timeline for initial inspection, marketing, photos, and any work that needs to be completed.
Our automated systems will notify you when your property listing has gone live, when a qualified prospect applies, when a lease was signed, and more. While your property is being marketed online, you can expect to receive regular updates related to the level of interest, showing activity, and feedback we receive on the property’s condition. A healthy level of interest indicates we have priced the property appropriately. If we notice insufficient prospective tenant interest, we’ll review any feedback from tours, communicate those to you, and assist in considering any of their suggestions or adjusting our pricing strategy.
After securing a qualified tenant, your Property Manager will focus on collecting the appropriate security deposit and first month’s rent, and ensuring utilities have been switched over into the tenant’s name (as appropriate) before moving into the new residence. Next, your Property Manager’s main responsibilities lie in collecting rent, ensuring any maintenance issues are addressed promptly and appropriately, and communicating with you. Upon submission of any work order by the tenant, our system will notify you via email to avoid surprising you at the end of the month. On the last business day of every month, you can expect to receive an email indicating that your monthly owner statement has been uploaded to your owner portal, and another email confirming the amount that will be deposited into your bank account.
Step 8: Client Feedback
Onboarding, marketing, leasing, maintenance, and effective communication are just a small part of our job function of being successful property managers. The most important thing for Keyrenter is to have certainty that our clients are happy with our services while they enjoy collecting rent every month with little to no effort, and truly experiencing the benefits of passive income.
For that reason, our team will check back with you a few times throughout the first 30, 60, and 180 days from the day you signed your management agreement. As a continuous learning organization committed to growth, we want to learn from our clients about their experiences. Specifically, if expectations fell short, where we excelled, and how we can improve in the future.
This information is invaluable to our team and allows us to address your concerns, and make any necessary adjustments to create the best experience for our current and future valued clients.
Ready To Partner Up With A Trusted Property Manager?
When choosing to hire a property manager, one thing to pay close attention to is whether they offer a smooth, efficient, and pleasant onboarding experience to clients. After all, this reflects the quality of their tenant-facing services, too. Having clear, concise, and easy-to-understand processes and standard operating procedures is the first step in evaluating a property management company, and deciding on whether or not they are the right fit for your investments.
Once you find the right property manager, they’ll make your life easier by taking care of the hassles of owning a home while you play the role of a passive investor and enjoy the income from your rental(s) every month.
Keyrenter has a clear, concise, and reliable 8-step onboarding process for homeowners to learn how to quickly delegate their job function as landlords. If you’re interested in working with us, start with the first step, and schedule a discovery call with our local BDM and learn how we can help you grow your real estate portfolio.
FAQ
Q1. Do All Property Management Companies Have The Same Onboarding Process?
A: While the goals and services among property managers are similar, each has its own specific way of doing things. This includes their own onboarding experience. At Keyrenter, we’ve designed and continuously refined our onboarding process using our clients’ feedback to make sure we cater to the specific needs of homeowners in the markets we operate.
Q2. What Should I Look For In A Property Management Company’s Onboarding?
A: The main thing you want from a property manager’s onboarding experience is to be introduced to the team you’ll be working with, receive a rental analysis rooted in logic, know they have boots-on-the-ground and can visit your property, and a thorough collection of the necessary information to launch a smooth and successful partnership.
Make sure your manager demonstrates the will and experience to add value to your life, help you make the best decision for you (not them), and find high-quality, long-term tenants for your property. Lastly, look for someone who’s open to feedback and excels at communicating with you before, during, and after the process.