Paying rent is something that you have to do at the same time every month. It should be as automatic and easy as brushing your teeth in the morning or tying your shoes.
We know that it’s easy to get distracted. Life has been pretty crazy in 2020, and you likely have a lot going on personally, professionally, and in your family life. We want to make it easy for you to remember your rent payments and less expensive. No one wants to pay late fees. No one wants to be hassled by collections activities.
Luckily, your Portland property managers have invested in innovative technology. We provide all our residents with access to an online tenant portal. This easy, secure, and convenient way to pay rent, make maintenance requests, and send us messages can make your life a lot easier.
Sign Up for the Portland Tenant Portal
Signing up for and accessing your online tenant portal is easy. You can access it through our website and we can send you a dedicated link that will take you through all the necessary steps. All you’ll need is an email address and an online payment method.
Once you have an account set up on our system, all you have to do to easily pay rent every month is log in and schedule your payment. You can save your payment information and schedule reminders. Whether you want to pay by credit card, debit card, or electronic bank check – the portal makes it easy.
This process will not take you any time at all to set up. After about 10 minutes, you’ll have an account established and you can start using it immediately. Some of our tenants establish recurring payments so they don’t have to think about paying rent at all. It’s simply deducted every month and a receipt is generated. This is one less thing to worry about for tenants who have a lot going on in their busy lives.
If you run into any trouble setting up your account or you find you can’t log in, make sure you contact your property manager. We can help you troubleshoot and if necessary, reset your portal account entirely.
Benefits to the Portland Tenant Portal
Paying your rent online through our online tenant portal comes with a lot of benefits. If you’re a tech savvy tenant, this will be nothing new to you. Almost everything can be paid for online these days, and it’s becoming more and more common to pay bills, make purchases, and conduct business online and even through mobile phone apps. Even if you’re new to technology or skeptical about its advantages, you’ll want to try paying rent online. It’s so much easier than writing out a check every month.
Once you’ve signed up for access to an online portal account, you can do a number of things, including:
View your current statement and pay your rent 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Pay your bills instantly from any place that has an internet connection. Pay rent in the middle of the night or from the bathtub – it’s all up to you.
Schedule automatic payments so you don’t have to do anything at all to get your rent paid.
Schedule reminder emails in case you need to know that the money will be coming out of your account in a day or two.
Review your payment history. Maybe you want to run a report or track your spending. You can access rental payment data on your portal.
This is one convenience that we provide for our residents. If you’ve ever looked at a calendar and panicked, realizing that rent was due that day or even the day before, you know what a hassle it can be to catch up. You’ll have to deal with late fees and you’ll now have a record of late rental payments, which never looks good on your overall financial history.
These online payments remove any doubt and eliminate the risk of late payments.
Our online tenant portal is secure. We know that technology is tricky. It’s a huge benefit, but it has some weak spots and some areas where predators and hackers can make life miserable. We understand if you have concerns. Entering sensitive and private banking and financial information is scary sometimes. But, at PropM, we make sure it’s completely secure. All of your information is password protected, and every transaction is encrypted and securely transmitted.
Some of our tenants have expressed concern that even with online rental payments, balancing what’s in their bank account with what they owe isn’t always easy. If you have a paycheck that isn’t scheduled to hit your account until the end of the rental grace period, we understand your stress. While every bank and financial institution is different, we have heard from tenants that the money usually doesn’t leave their account for a day or two. This means you can go online and make your payment on the third or fourth of the month, and it’s likely the money won’t be deducted from your bank account until the fifth or the sixth. This gives you a little extra breathing room and it ensures your rent is still paid on time.
Timely Rental Payments Improve Your Credit Rating
There’s another benefit to using our online portal to pay your rent on time: it improves your credit.
PropM has partnered with the RentBureau at Experian to ensure your on-time rental payments are included in the credit data that’s collected about you. Typically, only negative issues are reported to credit bureaus. We want to keep things positive, so your positive rental history is going to work in your favor. Whether you’re trying to build better credit or you’re planning to buy a home one day in the future, you’ll want the strongest possible credit score to help you get the best rates. Paying your rent on time will move you closer to your financial goals.
Rental Property Maintenance Requests
Any emergency maintenance issues should be reported to us immediately. We ask you to call us. Our team is available to answer emergency calls 24 hours a day and seven days a week. If there’s a fire or a flood or someone is in danger – we ask that you call 9-1-1 before calling us.
For any routine maintenance issues, you can also use your online portal to let us know that something’s wrong. When you log onto your account, you’ll be able to create a maintenance work order for anything from a garbage disposal that isn’t working to a window that’s allowing rain to get in to an appliance that’s acting funny.
The purpose of a written maintenance request is to provide us with documentation. Sending your request through the online portal gives us a detailed and accurate description of what’s wrong. It records when the repair request was made. This will protect you, it will protect us, and it will protect the property. Try to include as much detail as you can and if you have pictures of the problem, you can upload them.
As you can see, the online tenant portal comes with some great features that will benefit you and lead to a better rental experience. Don’t delay in setting up your account, and let us know if we can help. Contact your Portland property management team at PropM, Inc.
