5 TECHNOLOGY TIPS FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTORS

A year ago, who lived on Zoom meetings, Uber Eats and Amazon? Now we all do.

Technological change has reached a fever-pitch, and this isn’t likely to change soon.

As Real Estate Investors, we need to be mindful of how we and our businesses interact with technology, to be able to adapt to a chancing ecosystem.

How can we leverage the technological explosion to save time and be more efficient?

In the app jungle, what tools are the most useful and relevant for us?

What’s the best mindset to adopt in the face of rapid technological change?

Here are a few tips & products that were highlighted in our recent Special Panel on Technology, an Episode of the Real Estate Investor’s Podcast.

1 – Advertise your units with platforms that post to multiple platforms and allow Facebook syndication.

If you ever want sacrifice peace of mind, post your rental units on Facebook marketplace (Is it still available? Yes, otherwise why would I be advertising it?) while bumping up your free Kijiji or Craig’s List units. It’s a ticket to the millennial-chatting nuthouse.   

Imagine if there was a service that allowed you to post the Ad ONCE, and then receive leads with emails and phone numbers.

Guess what?! These services now exist. We like:

– Rentals.ca

Syncs to Facebook & provides phone/email leads. This service offers a free account with a certain number of Ads included. Ads appear on the Rentals.ca platform and Facebook marketplace.

**bonus for a user-friendly interface & rental stats & reports (they have access to great data)

– Zumper.com

An American platform that hasn’t fully rolled out its multifamily service in Canada, Zumper generates great visibility because it posts to Facebook. It also posts Ads on its own platform.

**free account possible, but be prepared for some of the irritation of Facebook chatting

– Rentsync

Allows you to post to multiple platforms (and I mean multiple platforms – Kijiji, Facebook, Rentals.ca, Louer.ca, etc. etc)

**their back-end is a bit hard to understand and their leads a bit expensive, but this service is really the top of the line when it comes to advertising rental units.

2 – Serve notice electronically.

The casinos are closed, but registered mail services have taken up their market share this year. When you send a registered letter now you’re actually buying a lottery ticket: will there be a signature? Will they deliver the mail at all? Will they leave your documents in the mailbox like any other “normal” letter making it impossible to determine if anyone actually signed for it?

Who needs this headache when there are electronic delivery services to serve notice that is legally valid.

We like Pronotif . There are others. A little Googling will pay dividends here. Also, don’t forget to have your tenants opt in to receive documents electronically.

3 – Integrate your solutions.

What if there were a way to integrate different platforms and apps? What if getting an email triggered saving attachments to Dropbox? What if someone who uses Dropbox and someone who uses OneDrive could seamlessly share files?

There are now ways to integrate out-of-scope tasks between apps and to get ecosystems to interface with one another.

We like Zapier. To discover it’s true power, check it out here

4 – Become a gardener.

This is a mindset issue.

We, myself included, tend to approach technology as a series of solutions that we implement and expect to remain stable across time. But technology is evolving faster than Covid-variants. You can’t hope to choose apps and systems once and for all.  

But what gardener expects to plant a garden once and for all? That’s not how gardens work. Horticulture is a careful process of pruning, weeding, raking leaves, mowing lawns, watering, adjusting for weather conditions and sunlight. There is an art to plant care.

Managing technological ecosystems in today’s rapidly evolving environment is similar. You choose your platforms and your apps and your services one day, but the next day might bring something new. As in gardening, you may tomorrow discover a new variety of seeds that are better suited to your unique climate and garden-conditions. You may be able to find a more comprehensive platform that does more. Don’t expect to plant your technological garden once and for all. You have to update and tinker with your solutions, learning about them, much like you would see how your tomato plants do in one place.

Adopt a gardener’s approach to technology. Don’t expect for it to stay fixed!

5 – Surround yourself with people who know how to leverage technology.

Turns out that getting good at technology responds to the same success laws as everything else.

Who knew?!

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said: “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Therefore, if you want more success, surround yourself with successful people.

The same applies to technology. Your ability to navigate technology is correlated to your network. So, love your geek! Find one (or two) and don’t let him (or her) go. Beyond that, if you communicate with other tech-savvy investors, ask them about their systems. You might learn something!

If you’re a technophobe or over 35, don’t despair! Technological literacy and efficiency responds to the same rules as anything else: your network, growth mindset and openness to new things go a long way.

Yours in Real Estate Investing,

Terrie