Show Links:
- Dana’s website is Hemlane.com
“How can we change property management and give a better solution”
Dana Dunford
Show notes for Hemlane – Property Management on Your Terms with Dana Dunford!
Joe Bauer:
Welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of Real Estate podcast. My name is Joe Bauer, and I’m here with my cohost Julie Clark. Julie, how are you doing today?
Julie Clark:
A little frazzled this morning Joe. As I was just telling you and Dana, my kids actually went back to school today on a little bit of a … We thought, oh, I think we’re going to get to go back soon. Our school is a private school, and it did go back about two months ago or so. But my mother lives with us, she’s in her 80s, and we didn’t want to go back until we were fully vaccinated, so now we are. And we thought, okay, time to go back to school. And then wham bam, all of a sudden it was like, guess what, you can go back tomorrow. So this morning I have been scrambling to get two 12-year-olds out of bed, one cranky, one excited.
Julie Clark:
I have twines as you guys may know. Yeah, I’m a little frazzled this morning, I even look a little frazzled. I’m looking at myself right here just because I was dealing with 12-year-olds trying to get them the heck out of the house this morning to school. So that’s what I got going on. I’m sure you’re living the dream. So please make me feel better by telling me what you’re doing.
Joe Bauer:
Well, we’re in Central City, Colorado, which is this great little spot at a KOA that has actually super fast internet, so we’re pumped about that and probably why you guys can hear me clear for the first time in months. But anyway, it’s within a shooting distance from four of the I-70 ski resorts. So we’re just hanging out here and jumping into the powder when we can. We were outdoor yesterday for six or seven inches. We’ll see, maybe we might go someplace else tomorrow Winter Park or Copper or something like that.
Julie Clark:
So I know you guys who listen to our podcast, we thank you for listening to us every week, daydream just like I do about living the life like Joe’s living, and now like our friend Jennifer Beatles is living on the road with your rentals living the life, not tied down to a bunch of property management stuff. So today we are going to introduce you to a company and our new friend Dana here who is actually going to help you guys start living the dream also. So Hey Dana, what’s up.
Dana Dunford:
Hi, thanks for having me Julia and Joe.
Julie Clark:
Absolutely. Hey guys, we want to introduce you to Dana Dunford. She’s the CEO and co-founder of Hemlane. And we’re going to let you learn a little bit more about how Hemlane is going to help you change your life and get on that path to financial freedom. And when I say freedom, that’s what I’m talking about here a little bit faster. So I’m going to read my notes here guys, because that’s what I need to do. So if you want to remain aware of what’s occurring on your properties, let’s say you’ve done a great job building up your rental portfolio, you want to remain aware of what’s going on in your properties, but you don’t want to be on call 24/7 with the tenants and the toilets, Hemlane is going to keep things simple for you. The reviews have said that this platform, which is a software platform is not overwhelming and simple to navigate are what I’ve read that these awesome reviews about Hemlane. We’ve been recommended Hemlane by some of our landlords in our group.
Julie Clark:
And so we heard about what they’ve got going on, we want to get Dana on here and introduce her to you guys. So many of you, like I said, have started down the path to financial freedom and financial independence by building up your rental portfolio just to trade that financial independence for property management jail. Yeah, that’s right, property management jail. So what we want to do today is maybe give you an opportunity to get back on path to not only your financial freedom but freedom with your time away from those tenants and toilets.
Julie Clark:
And Hemlane is going to be able to help you do that. I know a lot of you are looking at Joe daydreaming wishing you had that lifestyle, and I’ve seen a lot of you on social media talk about how you want to get traveling and all this summer. But having to answer the phone and deal with all your tenants is going to make that not as enjoyable for you. So let’s learn how Dana and Hemlane can help us get down that path to real freedom, freedom of time. So welcome, welcome. So you’re in San Francisco, is that right?
Dana Dunford:
Yes, I’m in San Francisco. I’m very similar to you guys, I travel a bit. I do appreciate the flexible work-life balance as well but do reside primary residence in San Francisco.
Julie Clark:
Awesome. Good spot for sure. Well, we’re going to kick it off today and let Joe. We’re going to get to know Dana a little bit better and then we’re going to learn about Hemlane. So Joe, let’s do it.
Joe Bauer:
Yeah, Dana, we love to get to know people a little bit deeper on this podcast. So we would love for you to dive into how you grew up, where you grew up, and how that led you to where you are today. And don’t leave out any details that you’d love to share.
Dana Dunford:
Okay, great. Well, where I grew up is a pretty difficult question, I grew up everywhere, traveled wherever my mom’s job took us. So started in Boston, ended up actually back in Boston for a little bit about seven years ago. Had some time in Tahiti, spent time over in London, California throughout the coast here. So I’ve been all over the place and never thought about actually starting company. That wasn’t actually my goal, was more out of pain and need that I saw in the market. And so after college, after university, ended up in Silicon Valley and working in tech. And after working at Apple and then going to Nest, which was home technology, my family was investing in real estate actually out in Denver. So Joe close to you. This was 2008 right when the market crashed.
Dana Dunford:
And one thing we realized, which was really just apparent to us that there was no alternative option to property management. It was either you had full service, you hand over the keys, they take control of everything. You sign an annual contract when you’ve just met this person right over a phone call or it was do it yourself. 73% of real estate investors self-manage their properties. So if you self-manage your property, you’re actually in the majority. You think you might be in the minority of, oh gosh, this is a lot of work, but you aren’t. Most people were self-managing and are still doing that today. And so that led to Hemlane and what we’re doing where we said there has to be a better solution, an alternative solution.
Dana Dunford:
Nothing wrong with full service management, but a lot of people are not looking for that as we know 73% self-manage their properties. And so we dreamed up, my co-founder has real estate investments. He has Florida, Georgia, San Francisco, so kind of all over the place and dreamed up of how can we change property management and give a third solution. So that led to where we are today. I was working at some of those big companies, Apple. Nest was purchased by Google and then left there and started on the career and endeavors of Hemlane about five years ago. So now we’re nationwide and helping provide a different approach to property management.
Julie Clark:
Awesome stuff. How fun to be in Silicon Valley working there and then all of a sudden you have your own startup. That’s some creative business there. So you are the co-founder and you have another co-founder you mentioned. Is one of you tech then and one of you property management or is it blended between the both? Sounds like you’re tech. Who is the expert at what side of the coin there?
Dana Dunford:
In fact, actually quite the opposite. I wish I had more tech experience. I’m good at the product stuff, coming up with here’s customer’s pain points, here’s how to solve them. But I’m fully on real estate property management side. I am licensed here in California, but I don’t use the license for anything. I think very similar to most real estate investors who get their license pretty early on. But my co-founder is completely tech, so he’s the genius behind it. Our philosophy has always been do the hard things. I think software is pretty dead if you ask me, I think it’s a race to the bottom. The value of it, there’s so many platforms out there that just offer software. I don’t think software solves people’s problems, but I think you can use software to connect people and solve people’s problems.
Dana Dunford:
And so he works on the tech side of making that happen and providing a very seamless experience to find the best way to get whatever support you need with your properties no matter where you are in the world. So we have real estate investors on Hemlane that are in Singapore or the UK or in Israel. And they just manage their properties on Hemlane using our software plus our services. And the services a lot of time is connecting them with the local support that they need.
Julie Clark:
Awesome. It’s interesting you say that 73% of people self-manage. Why do you think that is? Is it because they don’t want to spend the money, because they only want part of it taken care of and not all of it?
Dana Dunford:
I think it’s that they want part of it taken care of. They don’t want to take the plumbing call at 6:00 PM on Sunday or at 2:00 AM in the morning and do the troubleshooting and call the service professionals. So I definitely think it’s that as well as some of the costs. But I think real estate investors still have some willingness to pay, they value their time. If you’ve gone into real estate, you’ve been successful at something else, saved your money, that you understand the value of your time. But I think what it is is when you buy real estate, you don’t want to be 100% passive. A lot of times if you want to be 100% passive, you just go invest in a REIT or you go invest in the stock market or bonds. If you buy a physical asset like a single family home or a 20-unit complex, you’re looking for something else, you’re looking for tax incentive with your LLC that you’ve created.
Dana Dunford:
And you’re also looking for some sort of, hey, this is something on the side that I do. I put a little bit of work into it, and I get a much better return than I could get anywhere else. And so by the nature of that of buying a physical asset, I think real estate investors like the ones I talk to it’s never cost or that they have these huge problems with their property manager. It’s usually that they just want a little bit more control. And where I really hear they want the control is the rent collection and the financials. I want rent to go directly to me. If there are any late fees, I want that to go to me. And I don’t want any surprise bills with repair coordination. I don’t want to see $1,000 bill and not really be able to see the devils in the details or what went on that this happened and making sure that they’re getting a good deal.
Dana Dunford:
So while I think they don’t want to be in the day-to-day, they definitely still want that transparency and some control over what’s going on with the asset. So I think that’s a big reason, also the average real estate investor has four rental properties. And so from that perspective, it’s one of those things where when you have four, you’re right on that, oh, I can do a little bit of this myself. But then real estate investors find they’re doing everything themselves. And for them, that’s not an ideal situation, they want a little bit more balance.
Julie Clark:
Hey guys, it’s Julie here with a quick break from the show to discuss an opportunity some of you may have interest in, which is to work more closely with me. On almost a daily basis, I get calls from investors and brokers both new and experienced asking me for guidance or advice. I love helping you guys out, and it keeps me on my toes too. So with that said, I wanted to let you know that I have a private broker coaching community called the VIP Education Community. And the best part is that it’s 100% free. That’s right, it’s free to join.
Julie Clark:
So whether you’re a traditional broker or a broker investor, my VIP Education Community offers personalized one-on-one coaching from not just me but also from my experienced broker friends with expertise in all disciplines of real estate and real estate investing. We’ll teach and share our modern marketing strategies, our tech and lead generation resources, plus teach you how to identify or offer up opportunities for yourself or for your clients using techniques such as seller financing, lease options, land entitlement deals, BRRRR investing, flipping, multifamily or commercial coaching. Whatever you like, we’ve got it all covered for you.
Julie Clark:
The future of real estate is changing fast. And to stay in the game, it’s time to learn about all the options you can offer your buyer and seller clients as well as if you want to learn how to use those skills to grow your own real estate portfolio. If you’d like more details about joining my VIP Education Community, reach out to me at julie@seattleinvestorsclub.com or text me at (206) 910-2985 or just send me a Facebook message. My new favorite phrase is community equals confidence. So let’s navigate the future of real estate together. Now, back to the show. Absolutely, it’s all good stuff. You said software doesn’t solve problems, which is interesting. And then we talked about those things. So how does Hemlane help with what you just said there about-
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. So I think software solves some of the problems. We always say itself 70%, but it doesn’t go that extra mile. So you can do online rent collection in the system, background and credit checks, application. And we walk you through every step of the process of like, okay, here’s your next step, now you need to collect first month’s rent and the security deposit, do not hand over the keys until you do. Okay, here’s the next step. So that is through the platform itself to make sure that you’re going through a systematic process. But what’s interesting with technology is that a lot of times people ask, well, why isn’t real estate had this huge technology, had a lot of technology come into it? And I think the problem is that you still need physical people. When people ask me, “Hey, for showings, can’t you just automate it and have on the door key code and people come in and then the tenant just moves in, they have a key code.”
Dana Dunford:
If it’s their home, they still want to meet someone there, they still want some of their questions answered. And while you can use technology to facilitate, technology is not going to solve everything. And that’s that extra 30%. And so what we do is we use the technology to help walk you through a process. Anything technology can do better than humans, we build into the technology. But there are certain things where you still need a human involved, right? A perfect example would be in repair coordination. A tenant submits a request that their garbage disposal is broken. We do all the troubleshooting, and technology can help with that. Did you press the reset button? Here’s a video on how to do it. Did you make sure that there’s nothing down and make sure the garbage disposal is turned off, make sure there’s nothing down it? You go through those troubleshooting steps and then you send out the technician to actually do the work.
Dana Dunford:
Well, you find out that there’s a bottle cap that was down the garbage disposal. A real estate investor is going to get pretty upset if that’s just automatically charged to them. That should be charged back to the tenant assuming they put the bottle cap down there. And so that’s where humans and also the real estate investor doesn’t want to be the bad guy to say, “Just as a heads up, this was tenant damage, you’ll be charged back for that.” And so that’s where our team comes in. And so that extra mile I think is super important. And that goes with repair coordination as well as the leasing of finding and placing a tenant.
Dana Dunford:
That’s where having a really good agent on the ground to get things closed faster, get people into showings and really make sure you don’t have vacancy and that you have a qualified tenant, that will really help with your cash flow. So while I think SaaS is great to solve things, I think there’s a lot of tools out there that are just software only. And it’s how do you get more? How do you get that extra mile with it that we’re trying to solve. Those much more difficult problems that I think technology today can help solve.
Julie Clark:
Well, it sounds like just better communication in a faster … Do you guys actually send videos to them as part of the process that says, hey, here’s how you reset the thing, try this first?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. And sometimes tenants don’t need that, but sometimes tenants do. And then we have all of those on hand. Things like GFI, sometimes tenants don’t know where that is on the outlet, and you have to send a photo and say this button here. And they’re like, “Oh, I’ve seen that button, and I don’t know what that is.” You never know. And I think you’re right, communication is huge. Having a systematic process on that. When a tenant submits a repair requests, we say just as a heads up, most likely there’s going to be a service call if we send someone out. We’re going to have you schedule directly with the service professional. If you don’t show up for that time, you could be charged the service call rate. So just make sure you’re available or you’re communicating if you need to reschedule.
Dana Dunford:
And that way, if something like that were to happen, which happens less than probably 0.5% of the time or something like that, but at least you’ve communicated everything, and then people are much more relaxed and not upset. I think today when a landlord is upset with a tenant, a tenant is upset with the landlord or a property manager, I think it goes back to the point, Julie, of it’s communication. It’s just that someone didn’t communicate what would happen in this situation. And that’s where I-
Julie Clark:
Timely communication, right?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, exactly. And I think having a systematic and standardized process for that really, really helps. And as a real estate investor, it’s really difficult to set that up yourself, especially if you have four to six, seven units. It’s really difficult to get all of that set up. But that’s all we focus on. We wake up in the morning and dream about property management, which I think most real estate investors don’t, and that’s what we’re here for.
Julie Clark:
Good stuff. Curious, where did the name Hemlane come from?
Dana Dunford:
It’s actually a really fun exercise to name companies. And the reason I’m going to tell you this story is because I think a lot of people on this show, listening to this show or trying to name their LLCs like what should my LLC’s name be? And it’s probably a very similar process. And so when we were thinking of a name, we wanted something that was easy to pronounce, easy to say, short. And when you look at companies out there, a lot of them are two syllables, and it’s a name that you’ve never heard of. So like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google. And so the second that you get it to be longer, it’s much more difficult to pronounce and say.
Dana Dunford:
On top of that, we wanted something that wasn’t standard, it didn’t have tenant or renter or anything like that in it. We wanted something that really had some unique branding behind it. So we put all of our favorite words that reminded us of what Hemlane is today on actually a Google Sheets document. And one of them was home, we loved that this is someone’s home. And we really want to value that providing a tenant with a really good experience. Because for real estate investors, that’s our customer, that’s who pays them. So we want to make sure they have a five-star experience. And then we loved pathways and something that divided you from other real estate investors providing you with a better opportunity.
Dana Dunford:
So hem is house and home in Swedish and then lane is obviously a pathway dividing you from others. And so we put hem and lane together, this was back when we started five years ago when we didn’t have any money in the bank for it. We looked up hemlane.com online, we could buy it for $10. We said, “Great, let’s do it.” we did. The first year though, it would always someone would type in Hemlane, and it would say, did you mean hemline like the really bad on your pants, the hemline? We’re like, “Oh, shoot, maybe we should change the name.” But now when you type in Hemlane, it’s actually our company property management and all of that.
Julie Clark:
That’s good stuff. That is funny, that is funny stuff. I actually tried to start a startup myself back in the day in 2009 or something like that. And it was a real estate related one. And honestly, I had all the real estate experience, and I didn’t have anybody on the tech side. I wish I would’ve known Joe back then. And it was called Sharedbusinessspace.com, the stupidest name that you possibly think of that was … I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of Loosecubes and all these. Now, there’s all these office sharing apps and stuff like that. So I was really smart back in the day starting something like that, and it completely failed and fell on my face. Had a good run at it like two years. But because I didn’t have the tech, I didn’t know anybody in tech or anything like that, it was just too much to tackle on my own, and I bombed. But boy, life would have been different, and that’s for sure.
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. And I totally relate to you on that. People always sometimes give me credit for Hemlane because I’m on a show like this. But really it’s on my co-founder, he’s the brains behind it and the one who’s actually working on the tech, which to me is a more difficult thing to solve. It looks very simple on the front end, but what he’s doing on the backend is just ridiculous to make it all work. So definitely I can see that with Joe and the value.
Julie Clark:
Absolutely. So do you guys have like AI built into handling somehow? Is there any type of behavioral thing? These days, it’s kind of the thing, everything’s like a behavioral alert.
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, we’re just getting that buzzword of AI. It’s so funny because people say, “Well, you’re basically like an AI company, you should just say that for evaluation purposes.” A little bit so. So we’ve started using AI actually for fraud detection was the first place we started using it because we do 125 million I think annualized payments every single month. For us making sure that anyone who comes on our platform because a lot of people with LLCs, they don’t want people to know who they are. Making sure that, hey, this person is legitimate, they haven’t stolen someone’s bank account, credit card, whatever. We started it with AI for that. We’d like to build AI into the rest of the platform, but it’s not quite needed yet.
Dana Dunford:
Part of it has to do with user experience. But the second thing is a lot of it can be done through algorithms, which I think a lot of times get confused with AI. People say it’s AI because they liked that buzzword, but really it’s just an algorithm. If they click on this that it’s appliance repair and it’s a dishwasher and it’s a leak, then here’s the troubleshooting. You know what I mean, it’s like if then. So it’s much more of an algorithm today. However, I do envision we can put AI in the future. But when we do, we want to make sure it’s done right. I think some of those AI tools don’t work that well at the initial phases, so we’ll definitely get there. But the algorithms have been really good at being able to service more customers faster.
Julie Clark:
So how many units are you guys having under, I don’t want to say under management, I guess I’ll say under management these days?
Dana Dunford:
We have 11,000 right now, just over 11,000 units. And we’re nationwide, so in all 50 states. Some of our favorites are Hawaii because everyone who answers says aloha. Yeah, we’re in all 50 states.
Julie Clark:
So how about you, what do you think is your favorite feature tool of handling that you think is different than … There are other property management platforms out there of course, you guys seem to be crushing it and got some buzz around you, that’s for sure. I know you’re in startup world and you’re raising money still. And that’s going well for you?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, yeah, it’s been going really well. We have fantastic investors. I think there’s two features, obviously repair coordination is one that is just top notch. Everything from thresholds to make sure you’re never overcharged to single-use credit cards. So if we give a credit card that attaches to your bank account to a service professional, it automatically wipes the credit cards. So no information is ever taken. So there’s a lot on the repair coordination side. But what I want to focus on is my favorite feature is actually the leasing agents, that is one that I just love. And here’s why. Today when you buy a property out of state or even in your backyard and then you decide to live Joe’s life and go snowboarding every day, you need someone physically there. And a lot of times in industries, including property management, you’re asking to get married and you just met. In other words, here’s my 12-month contract, sign it and work with me, and I’m going to collect the rent and do everything.
Dana Dunford:
For us, what we love about the leasing agents is we have a platform of leasing agents where every owner who’s worked with them in the past has reviewed them on the backend. We don’t share it on the front end because we want actual, real reviews on this person. That’s a problem with Yelp and all these other websites, it’s just reaming on people, but it doesn’t give you the actual picture of consistently time over time how has this agent performed. Both data as well as owner and tenant reviews of did they pick up their cell phone, did they move me in well enough, all of that. And that’s my favorite feature that we connect you with a local agent. They’re not a Hemlane agent, they’re a licensed local agent who partners with us. And you get to choose which one you want to work with.
Dana Dunford:
So usually we introduce you to two or three, you say, “Okay, great, this is the person I want to work with.” A lot of times the first person we connect you with, you’re like, “This person and I get along like this, I’d love to work with them.” And then they help and find and place the tenant and really get you ready and set up for success with management. And so that’s a feature I love the most. And part of it has to do with that connections. I came from the Apple world, I used to do new product introductions at Apple. And I loved that your iPhone connected you with other people. I loved that feature of it that the technology really help assist something, these in-world communications.
Dana Dunford:
And we want the same thing with Hemlane, that it really does help foster that. And so I’d say that right now is one of the features I’m super excited about. And even building up that agent at work, that’s what we do every day. We talk to leasing agents, see who’s the best in the industry and then really help them succeed because that helps obviously keep our owners really happy on the platform.
Julie Clark:
So those agents are across the country and they partner with you I guess I’ll say. And that’s for the leasing and the showings and stuff like that, are they involved in the letting in people for repairs and things like that as well?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, exactly. So all of our agents, a lot of them are property managers as well. We work with property managers. Property managers use our software, which is great because then they get connected to owners on our platform as well. But yes, they will. Each agent is different. So there’s some who say, “Hey, I will only do finding and placing a tenant, and I don’t get involved in other things.” There’s others who do property management as well and say, “Hey, you need an annual inspection, you need me to let a contractor in because your tenant is out of town, I’ve got you covered.” So all of that they do.
Dana Dunford:
Typically, if they’re just finding and placing a tenant, we also qualify them for turnover coordination because that’s part of the process of the tenants moved out, you need to get it ready. But all the agents are different, and we have all of those upfront so that we can match you with who you need. Some of our owners are real estate investors are general contractors themselves, that’s how they started buying real estate investments. They do not want someone to help with their repairs, but they definitely want an agent to do the showings. And so we basically figure out what that owner’s needs are and then connect them with an agent who’s going to be able to do all of that.
Julie Clark:
So that agent gets paid separately whatever their leasing fee is outside of Hemlane, is that right?
Dana Dunford:
Yep, that’s correct. And we don’t take a percentage at all of what they make, we’re not interested in that. We would prefer to work with the best agents rather than the agents who give us a cut of it. And then we’re not working with the top ones who can get business elsewhere.
Julie Clark:
Awesome. Well, that’s what I was going to ask you. Has anything regarding the pandemic or the eviction ban impacted your business at all in any way?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, it was interesting, evictions a little bit.
Julie Clark:
A payment plan thing, have you had to set up a payment plan portal?
Dana Dunford:
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. We had this button called suspend rent or alter rent. And we created it three years ago and we said, “No, one’s going to use this.” I was like, “Why did we create this feature, Frank?” And then when the pandemic hit, he goes, “Dana, this is why this feature was created.” Frank’s my co-founder. He’s like, “This is why this feature was created.” So yes, we had some alternative payment plans that we did. Some evictions, we were lower than the nationwide average. We’ve been checking our numbers every single month starting last March. We literally checked our numbers and how our real estate investors were affected by the pandemic. I think from that perspective a lot of the places where we saw people affected by the pandemic were obviously service industry if the tenants were in the service industry.
Dana Dunford:
But the one that we didn’t expect that was hit, well, we could have expected it but was hit pretty hard was college towns. So we have real estate investors who have invested in places like college station where suddenly the tenants parents were like, “Hey, we’re breaking the lease, we’re not paying for this, and you can’t really evict us right now.” So a little bit of that as well that we definitely helped real estate investors as much as we could. We were surprised though. With our platform, I do think both on the tenant side and the owner side, people were very collaborative in this difficult time. We didn’t see really extreme cases despite the number of units we have, people worked together. If a tenant said, “I lost my job,” they were put on alternative payment plans.
Dana Dunford:
If a landlord had to sell the property for some reason, tenants completely understood. So I would say all in all it was better than we had expected. Not to say there isn’t a lot of hurt out there, I definitely think there is, and especially in some industries more so than others, tenants that are in certain industries.
Julie Clark:
Right. Yeah. Do you guys do, I don’t know why I’m asking this as a real estate agent person I guess and from a data. Do you guys track or do any type of reporting or stats like you see some of these companies like Redfin and so forth do where, for example, maybe do exit interviews with tenants like where are they moving? Are they moving to another property? Are they moving out to buy a house? Do you track any of that kind of data?
Dana Dunford:
We haven’t yet have move-outs, that’s definitely something we could do. We haven’t done that yet, but actually would be pretty … It was straightforward to do in the system assuming that attendance will fill it out.
Julie Clark:
I find that super valuable with the number of units that you guys will probably [crosstalk 00:33:54] management that you guys are tracking stats like that, that would be super valuable then. Well, good stuff. Do you pay attention to other startups in the prop tech or real estate space at all?
Dana Dunford:
We do. We’re always excited to see new technology out there, see what we can use, who we can partner with. And I think it’s an exciting time for prop tech. I think suddenly the industry, those in technology are realizing that there is a need of not just having technology but technology and people combined together to make the industry even better. So I’m really excited about it. I love the future of work and seeing how that affects things. And then I think there’s other things in tech that are going to affect real estate such as self-driving cars. If you have a self-driving car, you don’t have to live in certain areas, how does that change migration trends and things like that? So all of that I stay up to date with, I love talking to other founders, other entrepreneurs out there on what’s going on in the industry.
Julie Clark:
That’s awesome. Let’s get to the pricing, what does it cost for somebody to use Hemlane?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. So starting price is $30 a month, that’s software package. What we’re trying to do is make it where we can still offer support for you and your tenants. If your tenant calls to set up rent collection, we’ll walk them through it. So that’s why it starts at $30. And then if you want software only, it’s $2 per unit from there. If you want upgraded packages where we’re doing repair coordination, know your tenants are calling us or connecting you with a leasing agent, then it’s $15 per unit additional per each one. And then there’s different packages. So we have three different packages based on what we find real estate investors bucketed into of what they want. And then they can pick and choose what they want for packages.
Julie Clark:
Is there a plan that most people seem to sign up for? Of course probably if you’re wanting property management help, you’re definitely wanting that maintenance assistance and all that. Do you network and build a network of service providers across the US, how do you bring those on?
Dana Dunford:
We do it two different ways through partnerships. So for example, Ace Handyman Services is a direct partner where if anything were to ever go wrong, we can call the CEO of Ace and make sure that that customer gets five star service. And then a lot of times it’s through the leasing agents. So the local agents who have qualified service professionals. So we go through network coupled with our partnerships. Those are two ways that we get service professionals. As far as if you want to use our service professionals or your own, there’s a drag and drop. So you can add your own service professionals and say, “Call this person first. If they’re not available, call your own,” whatever it may be. So we have all of that put in there. Sorry, you had another question I think right before that one of service professionals. Oh, which package people like the best.
Dana Dunford:
It’s interesting. Right now, I would say we’re finding more and more people choosing the essential package, which is the middle package where it’s we do your repair coordination but with your own service professionals. We’re finding that one to be the hottest one. However, our software only package, a lot of people start with that because real estate investors are price-conscious. They’ll start with that and then afterwards they’ll have some situation where they’re on vacation or something happens and they upgrade and they say, “You know what, just want the complete package or something. I want to be a little bit more hands-off.”
Dana Dunford:
And they’ve already put trust in us because they’ve seen how we operate and then they just click to operate. So I’d say when you see our five star reviews online, usually those are people on our complete package because they’ve realized we’ve just changed how they manage their rentals. But it’s not to say that basic isn’t just as important because a lot of people want to experience Hemlane, but they don’t want to pay quite yet. They want to see how it works, see how our software works before they commit to anything else.
Julie Clark:
If somebody had five properties, am I doing the math that that’s 105 bucks a month or something like that?
Dana Dunford:
So which package are you talking about?
Julie Clark:
The essential plan.
Dana Dunford:
Okay. So if you have, you said five properties, it would be $80 a month if you’re on our annual billing, so you’re billed upfront or $109 if you’re on monthly billing.
Julie Clark:
And that is the plan that gives you, let’s say, the 24/7 repair coordination, right?
Dana Dunford:
Exactly. So you would get 24/7 repair coordination, and we would use your service professionals. So we wouldn’t use our own, we would use yours. But that way you don’t have to keep your phone on at 2:00 AM in the morning, we’ll go ahead and do that for you.
Julie Clark:
Tell me again what that means, repair coordination? I’m to say, “Okay, I’ve got the plumber, no problems.” A tenant has a problem, they know to reach out to Hemlane first.
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. They reach out, they have our phone number as well as they can submit it online as well. If they submit it online and it’s an emergency, we ask them to call us right away. We tell them don’t go through the system. If it’s 2:00 AM, give us call. We start with troubleshooting. And if it is an emergency, we’re going to do risk mitigation right away, turn off the water valve. You can’t find it or something else is bigger, we need to turn off the main valve, let’s walk you through how to do that. So we’ll go through the whole process with them. Then if it’s an emergency, we’ll be dispatching someone within four hours. We would call the owner if we can’t get in touch with your service professional. If you’re on our complete package, which is a more upgraded one, if we can get in touch with your service professionals or you don’t have someone, we’re going to make sure we get someone out there within four hours.
Julie Clark:
So what you’re saying, so people when they sign up with Hemlane, they’re going to enter in their service provider information so you guys know who to call, you’re going to call them direct. Is that right?
Dana Dunford:
Exactly, correct. So the real estate investor is pretty hands-off in the repair coordination, we’re doing all of that. But a lot of people do want that complete package because they say, “Yeah, my plumber says he’s 24/7, but who knows if he is? And I know if something goes wrong, I need someone out there.” And so that’s really where it’s, “Hey, we’re not going to give you a call at 2:00 AM, we’re going to be giving our plumber a call then.” So that’s the difference really between the essential and the complete package.
Julie Clark:
And so the difference again with five properties I think on the annual plan with five on the essential, the middle plan where you’re providing your own service providers I think you said was $88 a month, is that right?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. If you pay annually or $109.
Julie Clark:
Or $109 if you pay monthly.
Dana Dunford:
Yep. If you’re just month to month, you can cancel anytime.
Julie Clark:
Plug in and make sure everything’s covered again with those five properties, with the, what are we calling it, the third plan, the complete plan?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, the complete plan.
Julie Clark:
[crosstalk 00:41:24] for five properties?
Dana Dunford:
So that’s $234 a month if it’s monthly or if it’s annual, it’s $188 a month. And then we pay all the service professionals. So you wouldn’t have to pay your service professionals, we actually have those single-use credit cards because with our own service professionals, we have to pay them. And it’s only if it goes over your threshold that we would give you a call. You would have access also to all the logs, you would see all the troubleshooting, everyone we’ve called, all of our conversations. Everything’s online for you. Most real estate investors don’t care to check it, but we put that in there because we do want you to know exactly what’s going on with your property or what has happened. You can go in on Friday night and check what’s going on. And when you see a repair bill and an invoice because all the invoices are uploaded, it’s of the actual service professional. It’s not our invoice, it’s theirs. So what they charge is what you pay, we don’t do any markup on it.
Julie Clark:
So this is just the value of your time guys. I mean, that’s how I look at it. So the complete, the biggest plan there where they’re going to handle everything for you, if you had five properties, it’s like $2,256 a year or something like that is what the number looks like. So the question is, honestly your time. Let’s just say you spent that time instead off with your family or off building your portfolio to get even bigger. It’s just that time versus money thing to get you that freedom. It’s interesting how I feel like a lot of people want that, again, we’re going to circle back to the end here. They’re building their rental portfolio to have financial freedom.
Julie Clark:
Once you have financial freedom, that sounds good. But if you don’t have freedom with your time, it’s kind of like what’s the point if you don’t have the time to spend on what you’ve accomplished? I love the fact that Hemlane is like a piecemeal, let’s you build upon it as you grow your portfolio is super awesome. You should jump in on one of our weekly meetings and let people get to know you better, we’ll talk about that with you separately. Well, good stuff. I’m going to wrap it up here because we’re getting long in the tooth here. So what do you like to do again besides work? And how is it with startup life these days? I don’t know, are you still considered a startup? Are you still in startup mode or are you guys kind of graduated out of that?
Dana Dunford:
Yeah. You know what’s interesting, we like to consider ourselves a startup just from the perspective of I think that’s a cool buzzword for people to work more. But we definitely think of ourselves as a company in the sense of processes. When I think of startups, I think of things can go wrong. And a lot of times with your real estate, you don’t want things to go wrong. So we’re very much in that any mistakes we made were in those first two years of, “Hey, oh shoot, this wasn’t handled correctly.” Now we try to really make sure there is that professionalism, which makes us more on that company side. And then as far as the team and working, we still have our office here in San Francisco, we have one in Calgary as. But people have been working from home and very well. But I do think we’ll be going back to a flexible schedule. Most people on the team own real estate investments and manage them through Hemlane.
Dana Dunford:
So from that perspective they definitely see the dream of, “Hey, I want to go to Miami for a month.” I just had someone here in San Francisco, I picked up his car at the airport right before this podcast because he went up to Vancouver for the summer and will be coming back. And he’s got real investments up there as well. And so making sure that our team can also do that work remotely as they’re going working at Hemlane. Of course, that still means with the job you have to definitely be on for customer support, things like that as well. But I don’t think it necessarily means you have to physically be in the office five days of the week.
Julie Clark:
Nice, good stuff guys. Well, check out Hemlane everybody. We’re going to put a link to the Hemlane website down here in the show notes down below. And so as a reminder, we should have you come on sometime, Dana. I think it would be really good for you if you have a chance every Thursday, whenever you get a chance, I know you guys are busy or send somebody else from your team. We have a weekly meetup Pacific Time from 11:30 to 12:30. And there’s about 25 to 30 people that jump on there every week from around the country, a mix of agents, investors, property managers, you name it, they’re all in there.
Julie Clark:
And we’d love to have you come on sometime whenever you have free time and get to know our crowd and let them hear directly from you. Of course, lots of people listen to this podcast. But boy, it’d be fun to have you engage directly with some of our people live every week or whenever you can make it, I guess. So we’ll shoot you the details of that and see if we can round you up on a Thursday to come join us and introduce you to more and more of our people.
Dana Dunford:
Yeah, that sounds great, I would love that.
Julie Clark:
Good stuff guys. All right. Joe, where can everybody find the details of today’s podcast?
Joe Bauer:
If you guys are watching this on YouTube, the details will just be down below with the links and everything. And if you are listening to this, you can get to the links by going to seattleinvestorsclub.com/143, that’s seattleinvestorsclub.com/143. You’ll have the transcript, the links and all that fun stuff. And if you guys liked this podcast, please give us a thumbs up and consider subscribing on whatever platform you’re on.
Julie Clark:
Hey guys, I want to do something fun too. Some of you because somebody told us in our group about Hemlane, that’s how we met Dana, somebody connected us. If you guys are currently, any of you listening currently use Hemlane, drop a note below and say that’s me. We will let you know when we think Dana or somebody is going to jump on to one of our Thursday meetups, we can twist her arm on that, that’d be fun to hear from you guys down below. So all right, good stuff guys. We’re going to let everybody get back to work or fun or their freedom of lifestyle, whichever one that is. Probably Joe here in our group. But thank you again everybody, and we’ll catch you next time.
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