I love offering listeners fantastic benefits, such as some great discounts for products. These include the PM Grow Summit, website production through Property Managed Website, showing services through Tenant Turner, and more, with new offers coming all the time! You can see a complete list of the current offers at propertymanagementmastermind.com. For all of these offers, use the discount code “Brad” to secure your discount.
Today’s guest is Ray Hespen, who’s here to discuss his relatively new product Property Meld. This amazing product, which we recently started using, basically links tenants, owners, and vendors together into one platform to help them coordinate maintenance.
Ray and his cofounder were both climbing corporate ladders, which involved moving around a lot, so they were renting in each new location. His cofounder pointed out how much of a pain it is to be a renter and get maintenance done. From that observation of the renter experience, they realized the need for a product like Property Meld. They then talked to a couple dozen property management firms to learn more, and then decided they had to make maintenance more automated, simpler, and more self-service oriented.
The main reason people rent these days is because they don’t want the hassle of being a homeowner, not because they don’t have the option of buying. This means that not offering a strong maintenance service is the second most common reason that renters don’t renew their leases. In fact, a whopping 31% of non-renewals are because of maintenance.
Property Meld automates a system that allows streamlined coordination and schedules the repairs, verifies completion, and follows up with the resident for you. It can do this without requiring phone calls, which tenants are notorious for hating and avoiding whenever possible. It also keeps a record of contact attempts to ensure that there’s evidence when tenants claim that they were never called. It also ensures quick scheduling; 85% of repairs are scheduled in under four minutes.
Tune in to hear all of this plus much more! We’ll also discuss how Property Meld helps managers favor good service providers (and weed out the bad ones), exactly how important it is to use text messaging instead of phone calls, how much Property Meld costs, and how quickly they can get you up and running with the system!
Here’s where you can find Ray:
Show Notes
[02:40] - Property Meld has been showing up at lots of conferences and intriguing people, Brad points out.
[02:54] - Ray talks about his background and how Property Meld started.
[03:54] - Maintenance is one of the first things that will get you fired as a property management, and it’s often forgotten about. Brad talks about the lessons he’s learned on the maintenance front.
[05:05] - Ray shares his thoughts on the costs of maintenance and the impact it can have. He and Brad talk about the stats of renting.
[07:54] - We learn that Property Meld takes a different approach to coordinating maintenance than in most conventional maintenance management systems.
[09:06] - Brad offers a hypothetical scenario to illustrate how Property Meld works.
[11:41] - Is there a specific stat for how much more quickly repairs are scheduled when using Property Meld?
[12:33] - On average, people open emails 15% to 20% of the time. Text messages, on the other hand, are read within the first 15 minutes of receipt 80% of the time.
[14:35] - Ray explains that their communication, not just scheduling is text messaging and email-based. He then reveals that you can even send YouTube videos through messages.
[16:41] - Brad steps in for a moment to share a story about a tenant whose air conditioning went out.
[17:30] - Brad has just recently implemented Property Meld. He shares some of his early experiences.
[19:12] - There’s a learning curve with everything, Ray points out. He then explains why good vendors love the system, and how it helps to weed out the bad vendors.
[22:02] - Ray talks listeners through the cost for the system and the savings that it can potentially provide.
[23:56] - Your vendors are an extension of your company as far as tenants are concerned, Ray explains.
[25:22] - Ray talks us through the steps of getting his system set up for a property management company.
[27:31] - Ray discusses the automated process of their onboarding. He then talks about the discount he’s offering to listeners!
[28:51] - Where will Ray’s next public appearance be?
[30:13] - Brad offers Ray the opportunity to name-drop some happy customers.
Links and Resources:
(619) 988-6708 (Allison DiSarro from Seacoast Commerce Bank)