Primary Contact
Your primary contact will be your property manager. While you may discuss different aspects of your property with other Team Members at certain times, you should always contact your property manager to take care of unresolved issues or to get you to the correct person.
Team Members — Your property manager is supported by many other Team Members. They include:
The Leasing Team – During a vacancy.
Accounting – For financial statements and managing your money.
Maintenance – For expert repairs.
Communicating With Us
Our primary means of communicating with you is through your Owner Portal. Of course you are welcome to call us or e-mail us, also. You can use your portal to access real-time information regarding your rental properties. The Owner Portal allows you to:
View your statements and reports online.
Communicate with your property manager and other team members.
View alerts for unpaid bills.
Update contact information.
Modify your profile for electronic debits and credits to your checking account.
Here’s a Quick Start guide on how to use your Owner Portal:Login to your portal by going to:
www.HomeQwik.com
— In the upper right corner click “Login in” —> “Owners”
— Type in your e-mail address and password.
— If you haven’t set up your account yet, simply click on the orange “Sign Up” button.
— If you don’t remember the password provided, click on “Forgot your password?” button and a new one will be sent to you through email.
Or watch this video guide: Your Money
We know there is very little that is more important than how we manage your money while we manage your property. Here are some of the important details:
Owner Draws — We encourage you to allow us to electronically post funds to your account. This will streamline the process of sending you your money. If you provided us with a voided check or account information, this will already have been done for you.
Your property manager and the accounting team work very hard to make sure your tenant pays on time. The accounting team then processes your tenant’s rent according to the following schedule
Our management agreement calls for us to process tenant payments by the 15th and 25th of every month. However, our practice is to improve on that significantly, so…
If your tenant pays by personal check or via their Tenant Portal (which comes out of their checking account), it takes up to 10 days for those funds to “cure” (clear the tenant’s account). We will do everything we can to process those funds so that they reach you by the 15th of every month. This assumes that the tenant pays by the 5th of the month or earlier.
For tenant payments that come in much later in the month than the 5th, we will continue to process as above (depending on payment by check or certified funds) throughout the rest of the month.
It is our intention to get your money to you as soon as possible after we receive it.
Owner Statements — Your statements will be posted to your Owner Portal at the same time as your Owner Draw is processed. These statements are intended to show you the necessary financial information for each property in your portfolio. This will include:
If you need help understanding these statements, or finding them, contact your property manager.
Your Operating Reserve — We require you to keep $200 ($400 for vacant properties) available in your operating account at all times. This is so that we can handle emergency or smaller repairs (that we deem necessary) quickly.
Funding Your Account — If you need to fund your account to pay bills or pre-fund a repair, you can fund via your portal. See the owner portal user guide above
Maintenance
Our maintenance department’s mission is to perform work at the highest standards, in a timely manner, and at a fair price. No job is too big or too small.
How to Get Work Started — Service requests come from several sources:
Request by the Tenant. In these cases, we determine if this repair is tenant or owner responsibility. If it is your responsibility, we will get you involved in the approval process.
Result of an Inspection by HomeQwik. If the repair is owner responsibility, we will get you involved in the approval process.
Owner Request. You can request work by contacting your property manager or our maintenance department directly through your owner portal or via e-mail or phone call.
Initial Property Assessment — When you bring us a new property to manage that is not occupied, HomeQwik will visit the property to do an initial assessment. There is no charge for this service! It is important that we start off with good documentation on the condition of the property so we can hold future tenants accountable for any damage they cause.
The initial assessment also gives us a chance to get the home on our standard key system so showing agents and vendors can have easy access. If you are doing work on the property and need access after signup, we can give you a key when you sign up for management. HomeQwik will rekey the property to match the key you get from your Agent.
Preventative Maintenance Walkthrough (PMWT) — A year can be a very long time to go with no visibility on the condition of the home. Many items in the lease provide reasonable guidelines for how a tenant needs to care for your property. These include no smoking, only having the pets (if any) that are disclosed on the lease, not having extra permanent guests, etc. While we are extremely diligent in screening tenants, there is no background check that warns about cleanliness or bad habits!
Getting into the home to do Preventative Maintenance is a good general practice but the early warning on possible lease violations is critical. Mid-lease we can collect fees for additional pets and smoking (money goes directly to you) that may be impossible to collect if we discover the problems and damage after a tenant has moved on.
Move Out Assessment (MOA) — After a tenant vacates we do a very detailed write up on the condition of the home. You will receive a list of recommended repairs when the MOA has been completed.
We break down the list of recommendations into two categories: Rent Ready and Asset Protection. Rent Ready repairs are the things we recommend you do to attract the best possible tenant in the least amount of time. Some of these repairs must be completed before the property can be leased. These items allow you to command the maximum rent in the area with minimal vacancy. Asset Protection covers things that maintain the value of your property over time. Exterior paint, roofing, and keeping the landscaping up are examples of Asset Protection.
The MOA is used to determine which of the recommended repairs the tenant is responsible for. The cost of these items is deducted from the tenant’s security deposit.
Quality Control — You can count on a quality job, a fair price, and a fast turn. Between inspections, Tenants, Vendors, and HomeQwik Agents, we constantly get feedback about property condition, work needed, and work performed. Tenants provide great feedback if there is ever a question about the work performed. On vacant homes the HomeQwik showing agents provide feedback if there are quality issues.
What Happens During a Vacancy
When your property is vacant, then the Leasing Team really goes to work.
Your Leasing Team — This team includes:
Leasing Property Manager – works with your property manager to manage the leasing process.
Marketing Manager – ensures that your property gets aggressively marketed on dozens of websites. You can ask your property manager at any time for URL links to these sites.
Inside Sales Agents – from our call center, they process hundreds of incoming leads each week and make sure qualified prospects are sent to your property.
The Lease Approval Process — Once an application from a property showing arrives, the following happens:
Qualifying. The Leasing Property Manager gathers all necessary information needed to qualify the prospect. This includes employment information, verification of previous history, and an extensive credit and background check.
Approval. After all credentials are collected the Leasing Property Manager will evaluate for:
CREDIT SCORE – HomeQwik has a minimum requirement of 550. We understand that in today’s economy that potential tenants may have issues with foreclosure, short sales, bankruptcy, or medical collections. We review to insure there are no delinquent utility accounts, child support delinquencies, auto repossessions, or credit card collections. If a prospect has maintained good history with their daily needs they most probably will make a good tenant.
PREVIOUS RENTAL HISTORY – The Leasing Property Manager will contact an applicant’s current & previous landlords to obtain a detailed rental references. The applicant’s payment history is obtained, their HOA history is reviewed, and we inquire about the condition the property was left in when they vacated.
PROOF OF INCOME – HomeQwik requires that a household’s gross monthly income be a minimum of three times the monthly rent. We review the applicant’s most resent two pay stubs to ensure that they are currently employed and that the household’s gross monthly income is sufficient.
CRIMINAL HISTORY REVIEW – Our tenant screening includes a search of the applicant’s felony history. We have no tolerance for dangerous sex offenders and little tolerance for those convicted of violent crimes. We also highly scrutinize anyone with fraud or counterfeiting issues. Lastly, anyone with a history of criminal property damage is heavily reviewed. Misdemeanor offenses have little bearing unless related to the above. Traffic issues have no impact.
Once the Leasing Property Manage has evaluated all the above information then a determination is made whether to move the applicant forward. If there are some questionable items then the property owner will have the option to approve or decline an applicant.
Once an approval has been given then the applicant is contacted and a lease is electronically delivered for signature(s). Applicants are instructed that they MUST connect utilities into their name within two business days of taking possession. They are also instructed it is mandatory for them to carry Renter’s Insurance. An appointment is confirmed for them to come into the office for a review of mandatory items and to exchange their move in funds for keys to their new home.
The lease documents are then uploaded to the Owner’s Portal for the property owner’s review.
How Much is the Security Deposit and What Happens to It?
It is HomeQwik’s policy to collect the equivalent of one month’s rent as a Security Deposit. Statutorily, the most that can be collected is one and a half month’s equivalent of rent. In some cases, to better protect our property owner’s interests, we may raise the deposit requirement to the maximum.
The Security Deposit is held in HomeQwik’s Trust Account. Upon termination of a lease, the deposit may or may not be refunded to the vacating tenant. A Move-Out Assessment is conducted and findings are reviewed with the property owner. Collectively a decision is made how much to be charged to the tenant and how much should be refunded. The tenant must have the deposit refunded within 14 business days from the time they relinquish possession of the property.
What Happens If I Sign-up With a Lease in Place. How Does This Differ From a HomeQwik’s Lease? If you bring us a property with a lease in place, we will:
Welcome the new tenant and introduce them to HomeQwik.
Make sure they know where to pay their rent.
Make sure they contact us (instead of you) for everything they need.
The HomeQwik’s lease is a time-tested document that goes to great lengths to protect your interests while protecting the rights of the tenant. Our lease goes well beyond the standard MLS lease in accomplishing those two goals.
Day-to-Day Management of Your Property
There are many things we do on a daily basis to protect your investment. Below are descriptions of the work we do and some answers to common questions.
Enforcement Action — When tenants don’t pay, we begin the enforcement process to correct this. This process nearly always results in a tenant payment but occasionally will result in regaining possession of the property (tenant eviction). The steps include:
5-Day Notice (commonly referred to as Pay or Quit Notice). If your tenants have not paid rent by the 5th of the month, they will be sent a 5-Day Notice to pay rent or face eviction.
Forcible Detainer. Once the 5 day notice has expired and the tenant still has not paid, a forcible detainer is drafted by our legal counsel and submitted to the courts for permission to have the tenants evicted.
Writ/Eviction. When the court approves the eviction filing, a Writ of Restitution is issued, which then gives the landlord the right to take back possession of the property with the coordination of a constable. Once a date and time is established we will have our locksmith meet the constable at the home for a rekey to take place.
We work extremely hard to make sure that our owners are well protected against tenants in default. Please remember that the legal process does take time and it could be up to 30 days after the 5-Day Notice is sent before we regain possession of your property.
How Do I Know If My Tenant Paid? — You will receive an e-mail alert notifying you of your tenant’s payment.
You can always log into your portal and click on “Reports” and then view the Owner Report, if there is an outstanding amount for that particular month then you will know that your tenant hasn’t paid.
Or, you can send a conversation to your property manager via your Owner Portal or send an e-mail asking if your tenant has paid.
Servicing Underlying Obligations — We are talking about mortgage or HOA payments here. HomeQwik does not provide this service. We do process the payment of fines to the HOA as described below.
HOAs — HomeQwik will take over the interface to your HOA. We will notify and bill your tenants for any HOA complaints or fines that are received. Typically, a notice is sent to you as the homeowner and to the residence itself. It is important that if you ever receive one of these notices that it is forwarded to your Property Manager within 24 hours of receipt.
All HOA violations have compliance deadlines, so it is crucial to get these notices to us as quickly as possible to ensure no fines are assessed to your account. You will need to either fax a copy of the violation to
602-391-2578 or e-mail a copy to
PM@HomeQwik.com. If the violation has a fine attached to it then please pay the fine and we will charge it to your tenant’s account to ensure you are reimbursed out of the next rent payment or in some cases the security deposit.
When we receive a notice, we follow the following process:
Violation is uploaded to the owner and tenant portals for record keeping.
Tenant is charged for any fines that come with the violation.
Tenant is notified via their tenant portal and telephone conversation of the non-compliance.
Utilities — HomeQwik will become a user on your utility accounts so we can turn on and shut off utilities in your name. Depending on the city your property is in, we may ask you to fill out an application to turn on services and pay a deposit required by the utility companies. You will receive an email with this application and request. Your prompt response is greatly appreciated as it is difficult to show your home to prospective tenants or complete work without utilities turned on.
Per the HomeQwik’s lease agreement, you will have utilities on in your name for the first 48 hours of your tenant’s occupancy. After this time the utilities will be disconnected. Please note that HomeQwik does not pay utility bills or deposits for you. It will be your responsibility to ensure the deposit is paid for new requests and the bill is paid for each month that services are on in your name.
