When you become a landlord, you’re setting yourself up for a variety of unique benefits. You’re essentially giving yourself a secondary income, money that is available doesn’t necessarily require the same level of input or labor that a typical 40 hours a week job would. Furthermore, you can invest in properties incrementally, slowly developing a wide portfolio that builds in strength over time. A lot of landlords also simply enjoy the fact that they’re able to make money while managing properties that they’ve put time and energy into marketing and sometimes renovating. It’s often a rewarding job. But it is just that: a job. You may be able to work with contractors and cleaning companies for some of the more physical tasks; you may not even need to see your tenants in person ever if you don’t wish to do so. But there is a lot of responsibility that comes with being a landlord.
There’s a reason why some landlords like to be more hands-on than others. You may be able to have realtors show your homes and work remotely with tenants rather than heading out to meet each one of them face to face. But there’s a difference between delegating and using a property management company. Many landlords prefer to handle their own property management because they know that doing so ensures that their properties are managed to their own standards, rather than the standards of a separate party. For that matter, this will allow them to be fully in control in case of an emergency. But how do you manage your properties most effectively? Lots of landlords have found success with cloud computing. It’s estimated that about 94% of all businesses rely on cloud services to streamline their businesses today. This same type of streamlining can help landlords manage their properties as well. If you’re not familiar with cloud property management software, you may not be sure about how all of this would work. That’s why we’re breaking it all down for you below.
1. Easy Access
One of the main reasons why landlords are leaning towards cloud property management software is that they can more easily access the information that they need. Data that is stored on the cloud is fully secure, but at the same time, it’s hosted on servers that are basically accessible as long as you have an internet connection. This means that as long as you have the necessary login information (which you of course should change regularly and keep securely hidden away) you can access your data wherever you are. A lot of landlords are far from the properties they own, and many travel frequently. Therefore, being able to access your records wherever you are is a huge advantage, and keeps you from being locked down into a single office space. You can even work from home, which is especially beneficial in a post-pandemic world. For those of you who manage properties for landlords, which is actually something that some landlords like to do on the side, clients will also be able to access their own data in real time. This means that landlords, property managers, and combination landlords and property managers can all benefit from property management software.
2. Better Security
You may be worried that easy accessibility means lowered security. Don’t worry; this is not the case at all. Cloud property management software actually ensures that your data is more secure. Property management software that exists outside the cloud is often slow to update, and therefore more open to security breaches. The cloud updates automatically, and therefore is very difficult for hackers to get a handle on. Data on the cloud is encrypted and stored behind physical security, authentication gateways, and complex firewalls. Furthermore, the cloud is often audited and updated as need be. Certain systems also give you extra benefits, such as the ability to log out of a system remotely or block devices that you don’t trust. Security is so important when dealing with property management; and the cloud makes that more plausible.
3. Backups Are Simple
The last thing you want is to lose all of your data after a system failure. But you don’t necessarily have the time to manually back up all of your data. It’s much easier to back up all of your information on cloud property management systems. Your data is automatically synced to the cloud, and therefore it’s easy to recover lost data and restore previous copies as well. Furthermore, if your device itself ever malfunctions or fails completely, you can still access all of this information as long as you have an internet connection. This means that you don’t need to get scared if your computer is lost, and you don’t need to lose time and money recovering your data.
4. Cost Efficiency
There are a lot of issues to consider when it comes to property management and being a landlord. But of course, you’ll want to keep your costs as low as possible without sacrificing quality. Prior to the cloud, data was often kept stored on large, physical servers that cost thousands of dollars to buy and maintain. Furthermore, you would need to pay IT professionals to install those servers, and every time they needed repairs or updates, you’d need to pay those professionals again. The cloud eliminates the need for these servers and will take up less energy and cost less to maintain. You can pay to upgrade your cloud storage, but downgrade it easily if need be. Ultimately, this means that you’ll end up paying significantly less in the long term.
5. Flexibility
That brings us to our last point. You can have as much or as little space in the cloud as you need. There’s no need for you to pay for space that you don’t need, and for that matter, you can make as many backups or as few as you require. The cloud is made to be exactly what you need it to be, as individualized as possible.
Clearly, property management requires a lot of responsibility. But it doesn’t have to take up excess time or energy when you work through cloud services. That’s why they need to be something that every property manager or landlord considers.
