129 – How Hemlane is Bringing Property Management to the 21st Century with Dana Dunford

Synopsis

Dana is the CEO and cofounder of Hemlane, an all-in-one property management platform based in the Bay Area. Hemlane is a great solution if you own rental properties and don’t want to pay for full-service property management companies. In this episode, Dana will tell us how Hemlane works as well as how to start a prop-tech company in the Bay Area.

Key points

What is Hemlane?

Hemlane can best be described as an in-between do it yourself and full-service management. Currently, in the industry, you have two options. You either do it all yourself with your own resources and software, or you turn it over to a full-service property manager or property management company to do it for you. With Hemlane you can pick and choose what part you would like to do yourself and what you would like to outsource. For example, you might want all the finances to go through you and the rent paid through you, but you don’t like the tenants calling at 6 pm needing a plumber. Hemlane allows for that flexibility for you to choose what you want to do. They have local connections as well as maintenance coordinators to help with the rest.

Why Develop Hemlane?

With properties across the United States and the need for management for these properties, Dana and her co-founder, Frank began looking for ways to better solve these property management issues. Property management also being the “unsexy” part of real estate, they wanted to find a “cool and gamifying” approach to managing these properties. Their approach was the design of the software and tools that will get you from point A to point B.

For example, when leasing, they provide you with the information. Things like how many leads you have, here’s how many converted into a showing, how are you performing compared to others in your area. If you have your property for rent, how many days did you have it on the market vs. other comparable properties, how quickly did you respond, how quickly were your follow-ups? All of this information makes it more exciting and fun as well as informative. With this information, it helps you rent your properties out faster. You know where you compare and where you need to improve.

On the tenant side, they have a great experience because you’re on top of everything. They feel they are using great software and solution for where they will be living. After all, it is their home as well.

Hemlane currently has property managers as well as leasing agents who are experts in their area and are top performers. They work with the owners in leasing the properties and following up with the tenants. Depending on what you want you can have them as involved as you may need them. Different investors require different levels of involvement. When you sign up for Hemlane, they provide you with a dedicated property manager or leasing agent for your particular property. Real estate is different than other industries where 1 person should have all the information for your property. If a tenant has a particular question, the property manager can provide good customer service. They also provide accurate information since they are the only ones attending the property and know what is going.

The Beginning

Hemlane began in 2015 just north of Silicon Valley in San Francisco. Dana and Frank knew they had these pain points with managing properties in other states. But they wanted to network and see with other owners and property managers that they weren’t the only ones. In one of the examples, they met an owner with a property in Chicago that had the same issues. They offered to help and offer the technology which is where they really started to build the software.

As a Saas (Software as a service) you can either build software connecting other sites for marketing in about 3 months and selling it, or you can spend a more substantial amount of time and build the software to provide the full service. Dana and Frank decided to build the full-service software. That’s because their target customer’s pain point is not only marketing for leasing. It’s also making sure they are the right tenant and managing them through the life of the rental. Fast forward to today, they are in all 50 states with broker partners in 13 states. They are concentrated with multiple partners and another 25-30 agents that can help in any given time in other cities. They are currently spread between 3 different offices in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Calgary.

How Do You Market Hemlane?

Hemlane mostly attracts both owners and property managers organically. By being the best software in the property management space, owners who want to be more involved but need licensed professionals and property managers can access them easily through the software as well as property managers who are looking for owners who need help with their management.

70% of investors self-manage which leaves property managers fighting for the other 30%. With Hemlane, property managers have access to the other 70%, although it’s at a lower price, they have the flexibility of gaining more clients and not also having to provide the full service. Property managers also share their licensed professional list with Hemlane so they can use them for other owners, of course, with the permission of the property managers.

Hemlane’s growth has mostly been achieved through targeted marketing on social media and referrals from other investors and property managers.

What Makes Hemlane Different From Other Software Like Appfolio And Rent Manager?

Unlike Appfolio, Hemlane does not require a large number of properties to sign up with them as well as a fee of over $250 for onboarding. Also, the onboarding process is not as complicated as Appfolio’s onboarding. Hemlane made their onboarding user-friendly and you can get started within the first couple of hours.

Currently, there isn’t any software that offers what Hemlane offers. But there are potential companies that could and have not at this moment like Zillow who has Zillow Rental Manager which is your SAAS for owners. They want to manage their own properties. However they do not have a partnership with property managers and leasing agents as Hemlane does.

Hemlane Rates

Hemlane offers flat-rate subscriptions. One subscription is for the software only. The other subscription offers the software with the maintenance coordination and other services. With these flat-rate services, they are charged per unit and not the percentage of the rent.

What Are The Restrictions Hemlane Might Face With A Property Or Owner?

One of the challenges Hemlane faces for an out of state owner is when a tenant does not have technology like an email or pays the rent cash. One of the reasons is because they don’t believe in collecting cash payments that you can’t easily track. They want everyone to have that communication online whether it’s through text message or email.

Why Hemlane As A Name?

Dana and Frank wanted something different, where they knew they would have the dot com name. Also, they wanted a name that didn’t have any meaning for anyone else but had a meaning for them. They also want to make Hemlane international. Although they are starting in the US, their goal is to be international. “Hem” is house in Swedish, while “lane” is a pathway that differentiates you from another. They wanted Hemlane to be a platform that differentiated their investors from others.

The Conclusion

Hemlane has opened the doors for investors to continue to have better control of their investment with the flexibility and options to outsource what they feel might be better managed by someone else.

References

More from our guest

• Hemlane website
• Email Dana at dana@hemlane.com