All Forum Posts by: David Borden

Hi Ed,

That is correct. If you are managing properties for others, we are not the right software. If you are managing your own properties for yourself, the software is perfect.

Thanks!

From one property to thousands of properties. RentVine is FREE Property Management Software developed for Landlords and Investors. www.RentVine.com

Rent to them instantly before they go somewhere else. I attend the TransUnion rental summit every year and income to rent ratio is a very overused factor. The single greatest indicator of a potential tenant's likelihood to pay is their credit score. See the below table for their analysis.

Notice that there is virtually no risk among those with high credit scores. As with any rental situation, I would ask for as much money up front as possible. Cash up front is always a great off set to risk.

Buy and hold is a pretty tough strategy to lose on IF one manages the property professionally. This doesn't mean that you have to hire a professional, but it does mean that you have to manage every aspect of the property, especially the tenants. The key to buy and hold is great tenants, as their rents fund everything. There are a lot of well intentioned investors that retire the second they get a difficult tenant. If you want to be a successful buy and hold investor, make sure you are prepared to handle the following elements of rental management:

Advertising

Tenant Screening

Leasing

Rent Collection

Maintenance

Accounting

Taxes

If you have a pretty good grasp on how to do all of the above you will be successful. Finally, if you do make a bad decision on a tenant, get them out as soon as the law allows!

Best,

Dave

@Douglas Larson.  I realized that I didn't answer the rest of your question. I am the founder and CEO of the company, which also means I am in the "Sales" department. The software is web-based and you can access it from anywhere. Our management team has built a couple other notable brands in the rental industry including:

RentClicks.com (Now Rentals.com). We sold this business in 2006 to RentPath

PropertyManagerWebsites.com. 

RentScreener.com

FreeRentalSite.com

The premise behind RentVine is that we are bringing professional level tools to investors. Hope this answers your questions.

Best,
Dave Borden 

Hi Ed. We save your information forever. You can upload any information or document to RentVine and it will be there for you.  In addition to leases and disclosures, we have users that upload all of their appliance serial numbers, roof warranties, even closing documents. It's a secure repository for all of your important information. The software is out of beta and we have hundreds of users using the software on a daily basis.  Our management team has been building software in the rental industry since 2002. 

Thanks for the question!

Hi Douglas.  The software is free for landlords. We make our money on transaction fees that are paid by tenants. They pay for their screening, and convenience fees for rent payments. I grew up in an investor household, so I know how "frugal" investors are. The software is top notch, and I would love any feedback on how to make it better.

From one property to thousands of properties. RentVine is FREE Property Management Software developed for Landlords and Investors.

www.RentVine.com

Employment verification and landlord references are important, but they are clearly secondary to credit score. If someone has a great credit score you are probably ok with not getting the landlord reference or employment verification as this person has shown a history of paying on time. If you have a tenant with a great score, don't lose them because you can't get the verifications. If your tenant has poor credit it is much more important to get the landlord and employment verifications. If the tenant has poor credit, and you can't get the verifications, I would move on to someone else. It's rarely worth the risk.

I attend the Transunion Tenant Screening conference every year. Here are the results of their predictive credit model. You can use their score or any other bureau through one of their products or get the FICO score from a lot of providers. They are very similar. These numbers show the risk of rental default based on the applicants score and the income to rent ratio. As you can see, the score is the best predictor of rental performance, even more so than income...

Hi. We are looking for investors to help us improve our landlord software, RentVine. The software is free for landlords. We will help you advertise rentals, screen tenants, create leases, collect rent online, manage properties, manage maintenance, and do all of your financial accounting for your rentals. Any and all feedback would be appreciated.  Happy Landlording!