A message to all self-managing landlords

Let me ask you this. If you couldn’t stop thinking about something – I mean really thinking for three years solid since having an initial spark of a huge, brilliant idea, that no one had ever done before, that was not proven to work with the technology at first, but then three years later to be shown the absolute proof that it can be done, then would you go after it big time?

We did.

It started in the early 2010’s which was quite a good period financially for my wife and I, where we managed to buy three good investment properties. They were managed by the same real estate agency in Sydney’s Lower North Shore, and it was actually fine having them managed, although not quite the full level of service that you’d expect. I thought there was room for improvement…

Going forward to 2014, we enrolled our 15 year old son in a summer holiday app-coding camp. We were having a quiet chat with the owner of the company and instead of heading off quietly, I asked a simple question. To quote Ted Lasso, “Be curious”. It was, “So what else do you do when you’re not teaching kids how to develop mobile apps?” He told me he developed a system called RentingSmart that’s built for landlords to self-manage their rental properties. Naturally, having three investment properties of my own,  this sparked some interest in me, and… well, to quote the 1979 Remington Shaver ad, “I loved it so much I bought the company.”

So what happened next? Bloody Covid, that’s what.

But I say that with some humility. It was a terrible pandemic which the world was unprepared for. Much like how the Titanic’s sinking led to improvements to maritime safety, it seems one outcome of Covid is that it has changed the way many of us work and conduct life remotely.

And it was Covid lockdowns that led to the spark of our brilliant idea.

My developers and I were looking at ways to build an app that performs a property inspection remotely. You know the kind… where you regularly visit the tenant living in the property – usually every 6 months, and you walk around making sure everything is working, clean and undamaged. A basic condition inspection. But we needed it to be in an app, and done remotely by video.

We looked and looked, and learned no one had ever built an app that allows you to have a live video call with a tenant that includes the basic inspection functionality. And it was difficult but after three years of research, development and dogged tenacity, we managed to get it right.

We formed a new company called InspectingSmart Pty Ltd, and established the ecosystem that Tenant Connect needed to thrive.

Which brings us to now and the question of what really makes us tick? What’s our DNA?

Well lots of things really, but for me – when it comes to being a self-managing landlord who owns a property management software company, then that’s the core of my being. It’s why I bought RentingSmart, founded InspectingSmart and developed Tenant Connect. It’s our belief that software for self-managing landlords should be easy to use, exceptionally affordable, and make life a whole lot easier.

When people were told to stay at home in 2020 due to lockdowns, there was no way for me to physically travel to my three rental properties to inspect them, to make sure my expensive investment property was being looked after, and to know for sure that my tenants were not having any issues. There’s probably some truth in this… “Happy Tenant, Happy Landlord.”

Tenant Connect is a game changer. What it does beautifully is it gives landlords the confidence that their rental property is ok, and in doing so, they’ve not had to disrupt their life. That’s because Tenant Connect’s Remote Inspections saves the landlord time and money, is non-invasive for tenants, and promotes best practice in performing inspections.

Tenant Connect finally went live on the App stores last weekend, so the team and I are standing on the precipice of a new realm. From the spark of an idea, and after a lot of thought, it finally starts. Today.

I’m always keen for a chat with my fellow landlords. Feel free to connect with me.