The 6.9 release of Housters is now live on the website, and will go out to the Android Google Play Store and iOS App Store over the next day or two. Nothing too flashy in this release, just implementing certain features that customers have been requesting and fixing bugs.
Website Release Notes:
Allow signing up as an affiliate, to make money when your referred users subscribe to Housters.
Allow landlords and property managers to add invoices due to vendors.
View upcoming payments due on Calendar.
Support uploading attachments on “Other” invoices.
Don’t set default date range for to-do list, as it will filter out to-do’s without a due date.
If a receiving bank account name matches an asset transaction type, then when an online payment settles automatically assign the rent payment transaction to that asset transaction type.
Occupancy Report > Add filter to only show vacant units.
Various bug fixes.
Mobile Release Notes:
Improve the layout of forms to display field labels above the input elements.
On iOS 13.4 and up, present date picker as a full calendar view.
Fix issues with form field labels being truncated on Android.
Allow landlords and property managers to add invoices due to vendors.
Default the invoice list to show all invoices, not just unpaid.
If a receiving bank account name matches an asset transaction type, then when an online payment settles automatically assign the rent payment transaction to that asset transaction type.
Billing process improvements.
Push notification improvements.
Allow inputting an affiliate code on signup, to indicate who referred you to Housters.
The 6.8 release of Housters is now live for web and mobile. This release focused on enhanced security, bug fixes, as well as some minor feature updates. See the full release notes below…
Website Release Notes:
Upgrade Mint import of transactions to be faster and more reliable.
Control branding on top of website.
Show visual cues when actions will trigger sending of emails to others.
Duplicate tenant invoice numbers are being generated.
Filter Accounting Reports by non-property transactions.
Improve To-Do Updated Status emails to show more information.
On To-Do List, show # completed tasks when viewing incomplete tasks.
Online Payments > When subuser sets up account for sending or receiving online payments, notify owner user(s).
Support for RWF currency.
Enhanced role-based security.
Various bug fixes.
Mobile Release Notes:
Change style theme during certain holidays.
Upgrade Mint import of transactions to be faster and more reliable.
Control branding on top of mobile app.
Show visual cues when actions will trigger sending of emails to others.
Filter Accounting Reports by non-property transactions.
The 6.7 release of Housters is live! In this release, we focused on improving the usability of forms. We’ve simplified the ability to share forms with various users (e.g. tenants and applicants), view submissions from users, view impressions on your public forms, and more. We also improved the send online payment flow and now allow users who receive online payments to accept payments into multiple bank accounts and choose whether they allow one-time payments, recurring payments, or both.
Website & Mobile Release Notes:
Forms improvements.
Allow landlord / property manager to specify whether one-time payments or recurring payments are allowed.
Allow receiving online payments into multiple bank accounts.
Added send, confirmation, and sent screens to send online payments flow.
Allow adding a landlord with no property management fee. (Property Managers only)
Allow adding auto late fee charges for landlords. (Property Managers only)
The 6.6 release of Housters is here! Some of the highlights include auto-suggesting of addresses as you type, a more mobile-friendly website experience, and improvements to trips. Also, the import transactions from Mint.com feature that has been available on the website for a while has finally made its way to the mobile apps!
Website Release Notes:
Support for auto suggesting addresses as you type for properties, trips, etc…
Trip improvements, including the ability to set properties as the start and end addresses and then filter trip lists and reports by a property.
Vendors can now be set to active / inactive.
Security Deposit by Tenant Report improvements.
Design improvements for mobile devices.
Cross-browser compatibility design improvements.
When closing a master account, close its subuser accounts too.
The 6.4 release of Housters has been published to the Android Google Play Store and iOS App Store. This release focused on offering different ways to save on your Housters subscription. At certain times of the year, we will be offering discount promotions for new users signing up for Housters. For existing users, a new billing discounts screen was added where users can perform certain actions, e.g. rate Housters on a certain platform, in exchange for a one-time discount.
Release notes below…
We’re now giving away 10% of profits to charity!
We will be running promos multiples times per year offering discounts on Housters subscriptions
A new billing discounts screen has been added offering credits on Housters billing (Web & Android only)
Public screens redesigned to make it easier to see what Housters supports for each of the four roles: Landlord, Property Manager, Tenant, and Contractor
Signup user flow improvements while adding Landlords, Properties, and Tenants
The Property List, Tenant List, Transaction List, To-Do List, and Vendor List screens now have quick actions available from the vertical ellipsis in the top right of each screen
Add Landlord form now shows a payment schedule preview (Property Managers only)
Add Landlord form now asks if you want to add old payment transactions (Property Managers only)
New Landlord alerts added: Landlord Active Contract, Landlord Contract Ending, Landlord Late on Payment, Landlord Subuser Invites (Property Managers only)
Alerts are now cleared from app badge counts immediately after viewing alerts, you don’t have to dismiss the alerts manually
Various bug fixes
Not to be outdone, Housters 6.5 has been released on http://www.housters.com. This released focused on improving the Task Management section by more tightly integrating Vendors, To-Do’s, and Transactions. One improvement is that now when adding a Transaction, you can select which To-Do it was for (e.g. I paid my handyman Contractor $1,000 for replacing the water heater.) This then allows Housters to track how much money was actually spent on each To-Do and compare it to the Estimated Cost inputted. Another major improvement is that now there is a new dashboard screen for each Vendor, which shows vendor details, payment statuses and invoices, online payments, notes, and more.
Release notes below…
Vendors now have their own Dashboard, linked to from the Vendors List. The Vendor Dashboard shows details about the Vendor, money owed to and from the Vendor, Online Payments, Notes, and more…
Under each Vendor you can now view Transactions, To-Do’s, and Invoices associated to that Vendor.
Add/Edit Vendor Form > Improved the intuitiveness of the form.
Add/Edit Transaction Form > Allowed associating an expense Transaction line to a To-Do.
Add/Edit To-Do Form > Removed Paid Vendor, Actual Cost, and Save Transaction fields.
To-Do List and Add/Edit To-Do form > Now shows To-Do’s actual cost as the sum of expense Transaction lines associated to that To-Do.
To-Do List Report > Updated to show actual costs from Transactions.
Vendor Report > Added brand new report for viewing payments (expense Transactions) by Vendor, with To-Do information. This could be used for a 1099.
On Vendor subuser’s dashboard, we now show a summary of payment Transactions by client (for this year, last year, etc…) (Contractors only)
The Housters 6.3 release is now live on http://www.housters.com. This release is PACKED with improvements that we hope you’ll love. The one that we’re most excited about is that going forward in 2020, Housters is going give 10% of its profits to charity. This year we have chosen the Hands & Feet Project as our donation recipient, which cares for orphans in Haiti. We really feel good about this, and we hope you feel that your money is going to a great cause.
Housters is giving away 10% of its profits to the Hands & Feet Project.
We have also added a new Billing Discounts screen that allows users to perform certain actions (e.g. rating Housters in the app store) in order to get one-time discounts on their billing. Who doesn’t love saving money?? Speaking of money, we also now display the Housters pricing based on the user’s locale and current exchange rates, so our international users will no longer have to see US Dollars everywhere.
Housters offers one-time billing discounts.
For Property Managers, we have simplified the Landlord rent collector setting and do a better job of explaining the flow of payments and invoices, and which Transaction Types should be used when adding Landlord payments.
We have also vastly improved the intuitive of Transaction Types overall, explaining what exactly each one does and giving examples of real world Transactions that would use each Type. When you add a Transaction and don’t set something correctly, e.g. using the Rent Payment Type but not specifying a Tenant, we’ll show a warning so you know that something is wrong.
Full release notes below:
Start giving 10% of profits to charity!
Added a new Billing Discounts screen that provides various opportunities to earn discounts on your Housters billing, e.g. by rating us in the App Store or requesting your first background check.
For users outside of the USA… We now detect your country, look up current exchange rates, and show the pricing for Housters translated into your currency and at an equivalent rate. When you sign up for Housters, we lock in the exchange rate at that time and bill you at that rate going forward (so that your monthly amount stays the same.)
For users outside of the USA… Because we now detect your country, we also can detect your date and currency formats automatically when you sign up.
For Property Managers… When adding a Landlord, it now asks who collects rent from Tenants, the Property Manager or the Landlord. It then explains the impact of that setting, of which direction payments flow (who owes who) and what Transaction Type (Property Management Fees Received or Payment to Landlord) should be leveraged to update the amounts paid on Landlord Invoices.
For Property Managers… They can now create custom Transaction Types that update the amounts paid on Property Management Payments to and from Landlords, rather than being forced to use the Property Management Fees Received and Payment to Landlord Transaction Types.
For Property Managers… The Landlord who receives deposits from Tenants setting has been removed, as we weren’t doing anything with it.
The Add/Edit Transaction form is now more intuitive in explaining what the set Transaction Type does. It gives an example of a transaction scenario that would use the specified Type. Also, if something isn’t set right then it will show a warning, e.g. when setting the Type to Rent Payment but not specifying a Tenant.
Transaction Types are now more intuitive in explaining what exactly they do, e.g. how the Rent Payment type updates the amounts paid on rent invoices.
The Is Excluded from Operating Costs setting on Expense Transaction Types has been inverted to an Is Operating Cost setting.
The Show Balance on Dashboard Transaction Type setting now applies to not just Types in the Assets category but also Types in the Liabilities category. This means that credit card account balances can now be displayed on the Dashboard.
Various Trips improvements… The USA deduction rates have been updated for 2020. Also, if outside of the USA it will no longer pre-populate the USA deduction rates so you can input your country’s rate. Lastly, adding a new trip will display it at the top of the list (before it was incorrectly showing at the bottom of the list.)
You can now add notes to the main Dashboard. Previously, you could only add them to a Property, Tenant, or Landlord dashboard.
Notification preferences have been improved to be more descriptive.
The Unsubscribe link in emails now goes to the Notifications screen so that users can turn off alerts and get off the mailing list all at once.
Emails now display images, before some email clients were blocking them.
Transaction List > Select all checkbox changed to a button and fixed to be able to delete multiple transactions at once.
When it comes to technological advancements and the adoption of newer technologies, the real estate industry is not usually the first. However, slowly, the situation is changing and firms are increasingly adopting more modern technologies. Property management firms are using tools to automate their processes and improve the experience of their clients.
There are many property management software which can simplify the process of managing buildings and tenants. Property management firms are also using other solutions to provide amenities and data to landlords and tenants. Such as identifying the optimal use of a client’s office space.
Use of property management software is growing
There is a large market for property management solutions geared towards DIY landlords. In the chart above by Curbed, half of all single-family landlords, or 6,987,605 to be exact, own only one property. These types of landlords, in particular, are using spreadsheets and Craigslist, which are not very efficient solutions for property management.
According to the same article, Ryan Coon, the cofounder of Avail property management software, estimates there are around 8 million DIY landlords who could use tools to compliment their services.
It’s easy to see why. In a report by Chuck Hattemer called Software is Eating the Real Estate Services World Next, the real estate industry is entering a significant revolution that is called the “full-stack real estate services revolution.” For businesses to stay competitive, here are the 5 things to do:
Utilize the right real estate tools and technologies,
Centralize operations,
Integrate full-stack services,
Embrace automation, and
Built a right team of experts.
Let us understand how increasing use of newer technologies is revolutionizing property management.
1. Easier availability of more data
In the last decade, businesses and companies had to do detailed market research when they needed a new office. Thanks to online property management software and real estate CRM, all the required information can be easily accessed.
Some of the best rental management software provides free access to hundreds of listings and necessary information. When you have subscriptions or connections with multiple tenant representation brokers, you can gather a significant amount of information about properties easily and quickly. You can also easily find and view information on your dashboards.
2. 360-degree experience of property
Thanks to Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View, interested tenants can take a virtual tour of hundreds of places without leaving your office. Some of the techno-savvy property firms have started to utilize 360-degree cameras and drones to capture every detail of the property in 360-degree. With the help of Street View, they can easily have a virtual tour of the neighborhood to see nearby buildings.
Sample of a Google Street View
Online property listing platforms are now offering virtual reality tours of properties so that interested tenants can see the property just like they were inside it. This saves a lot of time of tenants and makes the property selection process much more comfortable and efficient.
3. Streamlined property management
According to these real estate management software statistics, 2.4% housing units in the US are for rent. Thanks to the use of custom-built online property management software, more substantial corporations that hold huge portfolios of commercial leases can efficiently manage their properties and simplify their processes. Through cloud-based online platforms, information, analytics, and insights are readily available to manage and optimize property portfolio and lease unused space.
4. Connected offices and better decision-making
With cloud-based technology, real estate professionals can benefit from mobility. Regardless of their location, communication and collaboration are streamlined. This promotes better connectivity between your staff.
Commercial real estate executives can make more informed decisions and optimize efficiency and profitability of their assets. That’s a boon for large property managers who manage hundreds of buildings and offices.
5. Scalability and automated processes
Property managers need to track rental listings, tenant applications, requests for maintenance regularly. They can also streamline tenant screening. Software tools and online platform can provide the ability to manage these operations at large scale thanks to organized processes and automated operations. A rental property management tool that supports online payment to offer a convenient way for your tenants to pay and expedite your payment collection.
6. Decentralized operations and reduced costs
Nowadays, many medium-sized companies are downsizing their offices and offering work-from-home or remote working opportunities. For essential in-house operations and senior management, companies find and offer shared work areas.
With the help of proper coordination and efficient project management strategy, companies can continue their operations without any hit in productivity. This saves them huge sums of money. This approach has significantly increased the demand for coworking and shared office space and property management firms are adopting special tools to address the increasing needs.
7. Meaningful and actionable insights
Digital records of property management stores various types of data, such as property details, customer preferences, and demographics. Analysis of this enormous amount of data can produce meaningful and actionable insights through a simple landlord software. This can help property management firms identify changing customer needs or better understand customer decision-making patterns based on accessibility of a property. This will result in an increased profit of the firms in the long-term.
A better experience for property owners and tenants
There are more than 100 million tenants in the United States. As the number keeps increasing, property owners need to find more intelligent and efficient ways of discerning right and reliable tenants, getting rent on time, and maintaining their properties more effectively. Property management software for landlords such as Leaseze is automating these processes to streamline property management for landlords.
We hope that this article helped you to understand how technology is revolutionizing property management by assisting the firms to improve the experience of property owners and tenants. If you liked this article about property management, share it with people who will benefit from these insights.
I’m excited to announce the release of Housters 6.2, both on the website (http://www.housters.com) as well as the App and Google Play Stores.
On the website, this release focused on upgrading our underlying web technology stack. You’ll notice that we gave the website a much needed face lift, both in terms of the overall design as well as smaller things like button styles, icons, and form validation. We also added the ability to run promotions that would provide Housters billing discounts for new signups during certain times of the year. In fact, we’re running a new promo right now that offers 20% off for new signups if they enter the code “TAX2020”.
Screenshot of the new homepage, running a tax time promo for new signups.
For our existing users, don’t worry, we’ll be offering discounts to you as well in the next release!
In the mobile apps, this release was all about fixing bugs reported by end users.
