Have you considered hiring a web development company to build your property management website? If this is something you’re currently considering or have done in the past, you know that there are many costs and challenges involved with building a unique website for your business with the features you need. In this post, we will talk about 3 reasons why going this direction may be costly and time-consuming and why this option is probably not the best route for your business’s online needs.
1. Large Time to Get Up and Running
Building a web site takes time and is highly dependent on having a well-thought out set of website requirements and screen mock-ups to ensure that the site will look and function properly for your business. Typically, paying a web development company to build this for you requires a large of up-front time commitment in addition to back and forth discussion to design and develop the site, which you will be billed for typically at an hourly rate. Most property managers won’t have the time nor a good understanding of the software development process to be able to take full advantage and have a good outcome and may lead to your project failing even before it gets off the ground.
2. High Costs
A custom website will be unique, however building a one-off website does not take advantage of economies of scale and will typically run into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars by the time it is completed. Adding extras such as mobile applications and connecting with payment processors to collect online rent payments and linking to other services your business needs will quickly cause costs to increase and become too costly for all but the largest property management companies.
3. Limited Knowledge of Best Practices
Web development firms typically build websites for many different industries and would most likely not have in-depth knowledge of property management. Because of this, your business may miss out on tried and true designs and features and your web designer will be in many ways fully dependent on what you tell them to do instead of already knowing exactly what to do in advance. Having someone who understands your business and knows what you need is key to getting up and running quickly and with the right tools and processes to have a strong web presence for your business.
What Should I do to Get a Great Property Management Website?
The best route to follow to get a lower cost and good looking website with the right features you need is to buy a website software package that is built specifically for the property management industry and that is easily adaptable to your needs. Property management website software packages such as E-Rental Tools are fully-customizable with your logo, layout, and color scheme so that you can get up and running quickly and with less hassle. Besides saving your company money, a property management software package will have the essential tools your business needs and will have baked-in best practices so that your business can fully take advantage of them without having to reinvent the wheel.