Hemlane

Scott Brown: Hey everyone, welcome to Invest Smart with Steadily. I'm the host Scott Brown, I'm on the Partnerships team here at Steadily. Excited to have Lexi with Hemlane on today to discuss property management and landlord insurance and how we all might tie together. So Lexi, excited to have you join. She started out as an account executive at Hemlane, been there for about a year and a half, and is now the growth manager. Lexi, I'd love to hear your story about your growth at the company. Steadily and Hemlane have partnered together for an all-inclusive, all-in-one property management solution, combining their property management platform and our landlord insurance offerings to better serve landlords for the long term.

Lexi: Thanks Scott, really happy to talk to you and excited for our partnership with Steadily. My name is Lexi, I'm the growth manager here at Hemlane. I deal with all of the partnerships and sponsorships with the company. I've been with Hemlane for just nearly a year and a half now. I started on the sales side of things and I've been responsible for being the middleman, understanding the needs of customers and users and then relaying it back to the team with a strategy and how we can implement all the suggestions.

Scott: Could you describe a little bit of Hemlane's main features for property managers?

Lexi: We're a hybrid property management solution. What that means is we have innovative technology on one side that does all of the heavy lifting — the rental advertising, application tracking, tenant screenings, lease management, rent collection. But what really sets us apart is we have that extra layer of the human touch. We have 24/7 repair coordination, tenant communications, lease negotiations, evictions, and we even help with finding tenants to fill your vacancies. We've really made Hemlane that all-in-one solution for landlords.

Scott: That's awesome. You listed a ton of features that you guys provide for landlords. How do those features simplify property management for them?

Lexi: As a landlord, no one really wants to answer those calls for coordinating repairs or calling your tenants when they're late on rent. Everyone who owns an investment property has one thing in common and that's wanting to receive the passive income. It's not very passive if you're spending all your time talking to and managing your tenants. That's where Hemlane comes in — a lot of automating and streamlining initiatives for them. It helps give some time back to them and helps make it go from an active to a passive investment.

Scott: You're spot on there. So for landlords used to juggling multiple tools and services, what are the biggest advantages of switching to an all-in-one platform like Hemlane?

Lexi: Lots of different advantages — streamlining the operations, enhancing efficiency, reducing your costs. Property management tasks can be daunting, and putting them into a single platform simplifies the task management, improves decision-making, and integrates all your analytics. It just makes a landlord's life easier. And with the 24/7 access and support, it allows you to scale your properties, invest into more, build your portfolio, and just ensure that you have support built out for you.

Scott: Totally. Lexi, would you mind discussing a few strategies for effective tenant management for the landlords that are listening?

Lexi: Clear communication channels should be open between landlords and tenants at all times. If you want to maintain tenant satisfaction and retention, communication is hands down the most important thing — from the beginning of screening them, setting them up with their rent, and then providing support throughout their time as a tenant.

Scott: Would you mind giving a few examples of proactive property maintenance — maybe on the proactive side of things to mitigate some risk, maybe on the insurance side, as far as what might keep a property in better condition?

Lexi: Coming into summertime it's always important to make sure you're checking your air conditioning, and also doing your annual inspection and staying on top of that. Hemlane helps coordinate all of the inspections for you, so just making sure you're on top of inspections so the property is in good health.

Scott: Would you mind going a little bit into legal compliance — basically how you guys can help ensure that landlords are legally compliant?

Lexi: We do offer a service called Rent Defense, and I don't know a single user on the platform that does not opt in for this, because it does allow peace of mind on the day-to-day for the landlord. If your tenants are ever late on their rent, we'll be picking up the phone, calling them, collecting their rent, and ensuring that you're not missing out on that. The Rent Defense service has three main stages. Mediation is the first one, where we pick up the phone, call them, try to understand why the tenant is late on rent, and then provide resources and an action plan to hopefully get the rent collected. I would say typically 98% of the time issues are resolved in this step. However, sometimes renters aren't as cooperative, so we do take a step further where we can serve a notice to the tenant.

Scott: Really, wherever we can help on the earlier stages is always going to be a better option for everybody involved. So what would be some emerging trends in property management technology that Hemlane might be using today?

Lexi: Trends in property management are changing every single day. Most recently what comes to my mind is the integration of IoT devices for smart homes and keyless entry — those are some that come to the top of my head right now.

Scott: In terms of Hemlane's current positioning and future plans — the industry has evolved a ton over the last decade — where does Hemlane see itself going in the future?

Lexi: Like most things these days, the property management industry has shifted towards a more tech-driven solution. However, you can't automate everything, and that's why it's important to find the balance between technology and human touch. That's why Hemlane has created the all-in-one solution for property managers.

Scott: So what has been the most game-changing technological advancement in property management recently, in your view?

Lexi: That's a tough question. I would say for us personally it is the tenant placement that we do. For out-of-state investors who aren't able to be there for showings, we offer lockboxes where we can do the showing for you from afar — so it's not necessary for you to be on the premises of the property. We can do it all from afar to find a high-quality tenant to fill vacancies.

Scott: When I hear that, I hear helping investors scale outside their own market. If you can't be there in person, you guys have an option — I totally agree that's a huge advancement. Well Lexi, I appreciate your time on our Invest Smart call this afternoon. Integrating technology into property management is so important. Automating and streamlining any initiatives that can give some time and money back to landlords is something that will ultimately be of major value to real estate investors. I encourage listeners to explore Hemlane for streamlined, all-in-one property management solutions. They're a wonderful partner and we're really excited to see your company grow and work together.

Lexi: Awesome, thanks Scott, appreciate it.