Hemlane: Property Management Software for Hassle Free Real Estate Investing
Dana shares the story on the founding of the company, their work culture, and how Hemlane property management software makes investing in real estate hasslefree.
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“We realized there’s nothing out there. There’s Do It Yourself software or full service property management, but nothing in between.”
BETTER RESOURCES FOR YOU AS A REAL ESTATE INVESTOR
The Famous Six
What is your favorite personal finance resource?
The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman
What is your favorite real estate resource?
One Rental at a Time from Michael Zuber’s show
What has been your favorite travel destination so far?
Mombasa, Kenya
What is the biggest bucket list item you haven’t accomplished yet?
She wants to wake up, surf Ocean Beach then drive to Lake Tahoe and ski all day, then drive home that night.
What is next on your travel list?
Tampa, Florida
What is your favorite life hack?
Sleep in workout clothes so she can immediately work out.
Discussed In This Episode
- Who Uses Hemlane
- Property Marketing Capability
- Use to Collect Rent & Security Deposit
- Pricing
Books Discussed In This Episode
Hemlane Property Management Software Review
Meet Dana
Dana Dunford, along with co-founder Frank Liu, started Hemlane in 2015. With a background in real estate investment, Frank and Dana built Hemlane to fulfil the gap between Do It Yourself software or full-service property management software.
Who Uses Hemlane
Hemlane was developed for the small real estate investor with less than 10 properties who invest out of state and want to control their net income and figure out ways to optimize their profits but without the administrative hassles of hands-on investing.
The average Hemlane customer has 8 or 9 properties. Most of Hemlane’s clients are investors that live within driving distance of their properties. But they either don’t want to handle the administrative tasks or have a 9 to 5 job.
The software automates as much as possible but investors still do showings, repairs, etc. A nationwide network of real estate agents who do the showing is available through Hemlane.
New real estate investors use Hemlane because they don’t want to learn the operations side, don’t want to know where to list, or how to do background and credit checks.
Although Hemlane wasn’t built for investors with 250 properties, their customers have grown with them so the software will add more enterprise features.
Unlike other property management software, Hemlane doesn’t charge any onboarding fees or training to learn how to use the software.
9 Areas Property Management Software Covers
Property Marketing
Hemlane lets you advertise your property to over 30 rental listing websites. Has partnership with Zillow so can click and upgrade and pay Zillow’s listing fee. Zumper integration goes to Facebook Marketplace. Allows for easy communication with tenants. Lead qualification and listing website. Autoresponder with showing calendar for booking.
Tenant Showings
Tenants can book time on the calendar. Landlords can set pre-qualification questions so you don’t waste your time showing up if someone doesn’t meet your requirements.
Screening
The software includes background checks, credit score, and income ratio to rent screening. By default, the tenant pays $30 ($20 in New York) for background and credit check but there’s no cost to apply.
You can choose to get a background and credit check immediately before reviewing the application. The full comprehensive background and credit check include credit, eviction, and criminal history. Hemlane’s algorithm recommends whether you should accept or deny based on their qualifications and if additional information is needed or if they need a cosigner. Because the credit check is a soft pull, it doesn’t affect the potential tenant’s credit score.
Leases
Hemlane has a direct partnership with Rocketlawyer for leases and pays the premium for on-call advice and date specific leases.
Rent Collection & Security Deposit
The property management software allows for rent and security deposit collection via bank to bank transfer or credit card payment. By default, the tenant incurs the credit card processing fee. Hemlane offers a word of caution against accepting credit card payments because they are easy to dispute.
By default, only full payment is accepted so landlords can stop letting someone pay rent in cases of eviction. You can enable partial payments for properties with roommates but assume all risks.
Landlords can add an automatic late fee.
Tenant Communication
Hemlane offers the ability to for all tenant communication through the software via text and email. Landlords can send mass messages or select which tenant and property you want message sent.
Track Income, Log Expenses, Pull P&L Statement
Landlords can track income, log expenses, and download Profit & Loss statements. Reports being revamped to make it more robust including custom categories.
Maintenance & Management
Tenants can put in maintenance requests. Landlords can set thresholds so the request goes directly to the maintenance person using your service professional. Service professionals can accept the work order via a link without logging into Hemlane. The software includes handling emergency service calls for landlords.
Pricing
Hemlane charges $30 a month for 1 unit on an annual plan. Plus $2 per unit each month. For 24/7 repair coordination using your own service professionals there’s an additional cost of $12 a unit. If you want to use Hemlane’s service professionals there are additional fees.
For an additional $32 per unit, landlords get full service including leasing agents. The lease up fee for leasing agents varies and is an additional cost. Hemlane connects landlord with 2 to 3 agents so you can interview and decide which leasing agent to work with.
Resources
- Guide to house hacking
- What is a Property Manager article
- Questions to ask a property manager article
- Fast Action Mini-Course on Filling Your Rental Property Quickly. Get it HERE.
More From Hemlane
You can reach out via email at dana@hemlane.com or the website https://www.hemlane.com/.
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