Baselane offers simplicity in small landlord accounting: Inman At-A-Glance

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Inman’s At-A-Glance is a quick glimpse at the latest tech, software and tools emerging in real estate. We’ll give you all the intel you need to stay up to date on the newest releases, and we’ll follow it up with full reviews of the product to give you everything you need to make informed tech decisions for your business.

Here’s what’s next, now: Baselane is a web-based and mobile-forward rental property accounting and business management app. It allows real estate agents to work with small landlords and investor clients, helping them manage properties in a scaled-down, non-enterprise technology environment.

What you should know

The single-family housing market is maintaining its hot streak, sending more people to leasing agents and concurrently, more money into innovation to support landlords. However, it’s the smaller landlord that needs more business support from the tech sector, as institutional landlords have long been provided enterprise solutions that are cost-prohibitive to new and small rental investors.

• The Center for Real Estate Technology and Innovation (CRETI) reported that 2021 saw $32 billion in private investment enter proptech
• CRETI’s report showed that more than 20 percent of all proptech VC targeted multifamily
• “Tenant experience” was considered one of the most crowded segments of proptech, but 2022 should see providers separate from sector competitors, CRETI reports
• The number of renters, driven by the need for housing among those not able to enter the single-family market and socioeconomic pressure for affordable housing, continues to push the demand for apartments and rental property

Cost

• Free for landlords and tenants
• Baselane makes money off of banking fees from automated rent payments, premium features and eventually, fees from using preferred partners

Benefits

• Real estate agents working with small landlords and investor clients can help them manage properties in a scaled-down, non-enterprise technology environment — simplifying business workflows and accounting and reducing costs
• Startup property management companies can leverage a much more affordable and modern technology experience
• Agents who also own rental property can leverage a professional, accountable and tenant-focused software solution
• Baselane has raised $8 million in a November 2021 Seed round

Why you should care

As the CRETI report shows, money is flowing heavily into the apartment market, and a good deal of it is fueling the development of technology to assist industry providers. There are CRMs, apps, portals and a multitude of innovations being conceptualized to help small to mid-size landords better handle the demands of today’s tech-enabled tenant.

Baselane, founded in 2020, is a fintech solution developed to make rental accounting and finance oversight flexible and consumer-facing, like what Freshbooks did for small-business accounting. If you’re not loving Quickbooks, Excel or some system you found at a first-time investor seminar, this might be your solution.

While managing expenses and reconciliation tasks are tedious in their own right, they become pointless endeavors if there’s no rent. Baselane, then, automates rent collection by empowering tenants to pay using a multitude of electronic transfer tools, something every landlord everywhere is going to have to adopt.

Why?

Because Juniper Research found that “digital domestic money transfer transaction values will rise from $2 trillion in 2020 to $3.4 trillion in 2025.”

Baselane can be also be shared by tenants with their landlords, and much of its experience is centered around making it easy for occupants to engage with their landlords, which can help when it comes to renewals, maintenance and payments.

In an emailed statement to Inman, Baselane’s CEO and co-founder, Mathias Korder said real estate agents are often central to an investor’s first foray into owning rentals.

“Once the rental agents help close on a property, they are often also the first point of contact for a new investor to get advice on the financial management of their new investment,” Korder said. “Baselane can facilitate this journey by making it much easier for prospective landlords to manage all of the financial aspects of this purchase – everything from assessing the investment to getting financing and insurance, collecting rent, managing bookkeeping and tracking property performance.”

Without seeing a full demo of the product — which is pending — I can only assume Korder and team have built an effective user experience, and that onboarding is without friction.

There are modules for intricate accounting, banking connections, revenue tracking and even property valuation insights, all of which can be accessed in a mobile environment, too.

Tenants can review at any time their rent payments, associated expenses and critical lease details.

While you’re waiting for Baselane’s full review to be published, check out NestEgg, another small-landlord-centered app.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.