Show HN: Rentolize – Become your own property manager
rentolize.com
rentolize.com
I'm not sure this tool is compelling enough to get me to switch away from my existing tools. My biggest issue is that you don't have any big screenshots or a demo account to play with. I would suggest you fix that RIGHT NOW.
Beyond that, some other thoughts:
- "Watch your properties get paid off" sounds like watching paint dry. Even though I paid cash for my properties, I can't imagine a several years process like this being something people would check in on. That's not to say there aren't many valuable analytics you could provide.
- 7 day support turnaround for a paid plan? You might as well say "We're going to treat you the same way Comcast does" I'd remove this right away and raise the price of that $10 plan.
Overall, it's hard to see the value-add beyond trying to replace my accounting tools and address book. There definitely are some needs I see as a landlord, but I can't tell if you offer them. Feel free to email me if you want more feedback.
How are you liking xero? Did you have any accounting software experience before that? I'm still using desktop Quickbooks, and I'm afraid that the online QB or xero may be missing features. Haven't made the time to eval them yet.
Are you paying Rocket Lawyer in perpetuity? Once you get your single lease and your initial questions asked what else do you need? Do they give you a discount on the evictions?
Cozy looks interesting, I'll have to check it out.
Edit: I was wrong - there is a product. But it looks so fluffy at first glance.
1) I think the pricing is too low. If someone has more than 1 property chances are they can afford much more than $10 or even $50 a month. If you're offering such a robust platform, charge what it's worth, not what you think will help you gain traction.
2) You might want to reach out to the folks at NoAppFee.com (https://www.noappfee.com/). I see both companies being able to benefit from some sort of collaboration. If you need an intro let me know.
3) Make this mobile/tablet friendly. Most property managers are out in the field managing their properties and would likely appreciate the flexibility of managing things on the go.
Great idea. Love the added value of the reporting. You may also want to think of adding some sort of scoring system for the renters based on their history so Property Managers can see quickly how much of a risk someone is. Seems like this would be pretty simple to do if you are already grabbing the data.
Happy building! :)
That being said I echo the calls for more information about the product. I know it does lease stuff, "reporting" and some expense tracking. But otherwise what does it do?
My management company may be annoying sometimes because it feels like I'm losing money I shouldn't have to, but on the flip side I don't have to do anything. Tenant has an issue? Calls the mgmt company and they dispatch someone to take a look and/or call the professionals. Tenant late on payment? Mgmt company harasses them until they pay up.
Also, I realize you're probably one guy but the support SLA of 7 days for the first level of paid account is... useless. If my tenant can't pay rent because the system is broke, 7 days is not going to be kosher with me ... just to get an answer (let alone a fix). To me, that's the sort of thing you look at and decide you need to raise your prices. Maybe its just me but I wouldn't consider anything less than the $50/mo edition and I have exactly one place to rent out.
Things that a first time casual landlord may not have dealt with yet:
- Depreciation schedules
- handling bounced payments
- recording capital improvements
- asset accounts in general
- splits for expenses
- bank and credit card reconciliations
- handling other charges(pet fees, utilities)
- security deposit accounts
- billing expenses back to tenants
PS: You may want to set debug=False on a production facing site
I can only imagine what kind of scuff will be put into it, but feel free to play around!
I'll also be posting this on the registration or pricing page. Thanks!
I understand that $10 is a pretty cheap to test out the features, but whenever I need to put real payments into something, it changes from "sign up right away and kick the tires" to "put it on the list of tools to eval becuase now I need to schedule time to review this"
Even if I only had one property, the free plan would be useless. If all I can do is record my tenant's contact details, and the name of my property, then I could have a better experience with a post-it note. No tasks and no expenses, and no payment records. Why would ever visit this site again?
The lease feature. I actually expected this would be some kind of lease template feature. Why would I bother uploading my externally prepared lease here? I need to keep dozens of documents for my tenants. Rental applications, credit reports, ID, pay stubs. If all this lease does is record the amount and dates, then I'll prefer the post-it.
Security. No way any serious user would give money to a site that is not using SSL. I hear certs are free now with LetsEncrypt. No excuse for plaintext authentication.
http://i.imgur.com/at2JKyq.png
And exception when exceeding the free account limits?
I'd like to try it without having to enter a credit card, but the choice is yours to require it upfront or ask for it after the trial period.
As mentioned elsewhere, you really need to put the site under SSL. Stripe checkout is not secure without it.
I'd like to see more info before signing up. I was really hoping tenants could pay online, but that doesn't look like a feature.
A cool feature would be helping to make a craigslist add from the property info and photos. Even it's a cut/paste this code deal.
Good luck!
FWIW, postlets.com is great while we wait for rentolize.com ;)
I think this is a mistake. As a small residential property owner, a property management company is so cheap I feel using one is totally worth it.
I suspect it might be wiser to target small property management companies. Or even better, uber for property management.
5-10% of gross scheduled rents is cheap? Maybe if your market allows you to collect a huge amount of surplus, then that could be true. I would expect a large portion of small property owners became accidental landlords when they ended up with an extra house, and are just hoping to break even on the cash flow, and banking on equity accumulation and capital appreciation to make the whole enterprise worthwhile. Paying a property manager puts that at risk.
Like dropbox for file sync. Google drive, amazon cloud drive, and microsoft onedrive could be the me-too's. They are mostly differentiating on prices and platforms, but fundamentally the same.
Or taken to a further extreme, opening a gas station at the same intersection as an existing gas station. The only differentiation is which side of the street you are on. Of course this does happen, and they must be profitable enough to continue operating, but can never be wildly profitable.
Not impossible to make a business out of a "me too", but harder. Catering to a niche could work. Competing only on price typically doesn't work. Better quality and better user experience are good opportunities, but take a lot of work to reach and demonstrate.