Journalist

Content Writer, Stacker

GM of San Diego

Head Of In-Lease Experience

Property management was unsatisfactory for both homeowners and renters - until two entrepreneurs decided it was time to disrupt the old model with Belong.

How Two Entrepreneurs Are Elevating Property Management

Property management was unsatisfactory for both homeowners and renters - until two entrepreneurs decided it was time to disrupt the old model with Belong. Read on for the story of how Belong started and their mission. 

In the case of Belong, our founders – Ale Resnik and O. Savir – were inspired by their experiences with the very act of “Belonging.”

They captured it poignantly and personally in a blog, writing:

We are a company started by immigrants. As immigrants, we had to redefine, multiple times and in numerous ways, what Home meant to us.

Is Home the walls around you and the ceiling above you?

As they began thinking deeply about what home meant – along with another founder, Tyler Infelise – these imaginative serial entrepreneurs had an important revelation about its fundamental essence.

They put it eloquently in that same blog post:

“With time, we discovered that Home isn't a place. Home is a feeling. Home is where our heart is.”

As they looked for their next entrepreneurial venture – conducting a lot of research and spending a lot of time talking to friends and family – an opportunity began to take shape.  An opportunity that involved a total, bottom-up reinvention of something known as “property management.”

Ale and O decided to take on this challenge because they saw that the need was great.  As they wrote, “We chose an industry that hadn't changed in centuries and offered no elements of delight to those it was meant to serve.”

The founders recognized that tenants often feel like temporary guests living in somebody else’s home.  Some are treated badly (we’ve all heard our share of landlord horror stories), and often are treated like second-class citizens.  So the company’s mission – concisely put – is to make tenants feel like they belong. 

Central to the vision that these two founders had was to create a company where people who loved their houses  – Belong calls them “homeowners” –  could be connected to people who would love them as much as they do.

If you’re a homeowner – whether you are downsizing, or are dealing with a long-term family home – Ale and O have built a system and culture where you will be incredibly well looked after.

Read about Belong’s unequaled suite of services here.

Belong will find the perfect residents, screen them, and help them move in – and you move out – with precision and care.  They use technology to streamline, and committed Concierges (people, not bots) to make sure everything runs perfectly. 

Once someone moves in, their full-time team of Belong Pros handles all maintenance – expected and unexpected – which is a remarkable service in a world where reliable and talented contractors are in great demand.  It feels great when work is done right the first time around.

Another benefit of Ale and O’s vision is that happy residents – which they enable – will stay longer and reduce vacancies, which are expensive!

If you’re a homeowner, Belong’s founders have built something that can, candidly, rock your world.  Ale, O, and Tyler wrap it up like this:

“We love building products that make people happy. More specifically, we love surprising people with something they never thought could make them happy.”

Disruption is here. Get ready to be delighted.

Houseplants are a great way to brighten up any home and a budget-friendly way to add value and warmth to a rental property. Here are 5 of our favorites.

5 Plants That Will Brighten Your Rental Investment Instantly

Houseplants are a great way to brighten up any home without a massive investment, making them a budget-friendly way to add value and warmth to a rental property. Here are 5 of our favorite house plants for adding life to rental homes. 

Think of the trends we’ve seen emerge on Instagram and elsewhere over the course of the past year and a half: puppies, sourdough, and houseplants. It is no coincidence that all these trends revolve around living, breathing things — yes, even sourdough, with its bacteria and yeast giving rise to each and every X-scored loaf. In fact it makes perfect sense: inundated with such dark news it’s no surprise that, subconsciously or not, people began to surround themselves with things that grow, change, and give us hope for the future. Because when we see things growing we feel more alive. 

That’s why Belong encourages everyone in their community, homeowners and residents alike, to cultivate some plant life in their homes. We all know what a charge of life we feel when we walk into a space filled with plants. What’s more, if a plant looks healthy and cared for, it feels safe to assume that the house it lives in is treated just as well, if not better.

We’ve written before about how to build a beautiful backyard, but to help you spruce up the inside of your home, here’s our list of 5 great houseplants.

We love the look of palms in general — the fronds spreading like the fingers of a hand, so thin and delicate and beautiful they seem to be waving at you, calling for your attention.  But most palms require a lot of care and a lot of sunlight. The Lady Palm is the exquisite exception; though it doesn’t lack for palminess, it also doesn’t need much sunlight, making it a perfect indoor plant.

There’s something about the spongy leaves of a jade plant that we find wonderfully sumptuous. They’re as pleasing to look at as they are to touch, too: the beautiful contrast between the thick, heavy branches and the beautiful contoured leaves is a visual.  They’re also very easy to care for: because they’re succulents they can sometimes go months without being watered!

What’s more, the jade plant is also called the lucky plant or money plant, which makes it a wonderful present for a homeowner to leave for a new resident.

Like the idea of a succulent, but looking for something a little more visual drama than a jade provides?  A snake plant might be right for you.  Its leaves are long and flat and far more striking than the jade’s. But much like succulent cousin, it only needs to be watered occasionally (in fact, in the winter, it can go up to 2 months without any H2O).  And it doesn’t need a lot of light to thrive, making it ideal for apartments and rooms that don’t get much sun!  Also, a NASA study shows that it actually cleans the air. 

A flowering plant, the clusters of pretty, pink blossoms add a pop of color and a lovely scent to any room.  They only need indirect sunlight and are drought resistant, too, which makes them the ideal plant for novice plant owners. 

A hanging plant with long cascades of delicate vines, the String of Hearts adds a touch of drama to any room.  It retains water well, too, so it doesn’t require helicopter plant parenting, and its pink stems and waxy leaves make it more colorful than your typical houseplant.

There are lots of ways to create a home that someone will love, but there’s nothing that creates as much impact with as little cost or effort as houseplants! If you're looking for bigger changes, check out the top design trends for 2022. 

Make your home stand out and capture more rent – quickly and affordably – in our fitness-obsessed culture

Home Fitness Ideas Under $300 To Add Muscle To Your Rental Listing

Make your home stand out and capture more rent – quickly and affordably – in our fitness-obsessed culture.

Few amenities are more attractive to potential renters than a gym. Given the health and wellness trends sweeping the country – and the reluctance many still have to exposing themselves to heavy-breathers at a gym – you can easily see how home fitness equipment can differentiate a property and give you the ability to charge more for it. Of course, some investments – like a $2,800 vertical climber – are simply not worth it.  

But there are many price-effective opportunities to add a fitness component to your home.  

The first question you may be asking, though, is where to put all this stuff? After all, most homes are not big enough to convert an entire room into a state-of-the-art fitness facility. Thankfully, there are some practical solutions that will surprise you with their ease and creativity.

You don't need to remodel your rental to add a gym or home fitness space. This link to more than 30 inspired solutions from HGTV will spark your imagination. They range from the back of a door to a garage cubby to an attic or basement. Depending on the climate you live in, an outdoor gym can also be a great solution.

Once you figure out where you are going to locate the gym, the next step is to decide how to want to outfit it. For the smallest spaces, you might want to consider suspension training systems, which consist of a series of ropes and belts that are suspended from a single point. That can be a doorway, the wall above a window, or even a tree. They are affordable – many are under $75 and $150 will get you a premium model – and some come with an app, which you can offer to your tenants as well. Here’s a link to the seven best, according to Healthline.

Affordable home fitness equipment for rentals with small spaces

If you have a small area within a larger room that you can screen off, it can be outfitted with a collection of workout equipment that will deliver a lot of bang for the buck. (Here are some tips we found on Pinterest for separating a gym from the rest of the room.)  This new “gym niche”   can include kettlebells; a balance trainer; slides or wheels that provide core stability and won’t mess up your floors; and this sweet Core Max Ab Machine, which, ringing in at an affordable $109, is the most expensive of the lot (and that includes the “power assist rebound system”).

Affordable home gyms to fit into rental homes

If you have the space to spare you might be surprised at how affordable some larger workout equipment can be. This space-saving, quiet-running treadmill is just $260. Needless to say, you can spend more, but people aren’t expecting Equinox-level equipment in a rental place. This folding exercise bike is just $129. There are also folding treadmills available – here’s a solid-looking one for $380 – so if you want to give your tenants the ability to turn their gym back into the living room, that flexibility is easily achievable.

We were also drawn to this compact rowing machine for $300, as well as this Weider Home Gym system – complete with a high and low pulley stations, a 4-foam padded leg developer, and an 80-pound weight stack that, when used with pulleys, can offer more than 200 pounds of total resistance.  (Forgive us for sounding like a commercial, but that value carries a lot of weight with us.)  Indeed, there is a lot of innovative workout equipment available – for example, for just $119 you can get a “Fusion Motion” portable gym tricked out with 8 accessories that include heavy resistance bands, an ab roller wheel, and more – enough for a full-body workout. 

If you think you’re going to have tenants who need to take out their frustration somewhere, try this free-standing punching bag for just $209. If, on the other hand, you want to satisfy someone whose idea of fitness is to jump on a vibrating exercise machine, this nifty LifePro Vibration Plate Exercise Machine, which delivers a whole body workout through its vibration fitness platform – we’re in! – is just $198. And, if you want to make your gym feel even more special, you can add this cute little retro-styled Frigidaire for just $195. The side bottle opener is a very cool touch, must say.

Of course, these home enhancements are not going to replicate what a gym can offer, but they are likely to be an unexpected surprise that makes a home special and easier to fall in love with – while saying something meaningful about you at the same time.

Add serious muscle to your rental returns with Belong

Like leotards and legwarmers, property management is so 80's. If you really want to strengthen your rental investment, consider ditching the suits and joining the industry disrupter, Belong. We'll take care of everything to get you the best possible return and residents for your home. Learn more at belonghome.com. 

Make your rental listing stand out and capture more rent in our fitness-obsessed culture with these home gym ideas under $300

It says everything about their value system and why the difference between homeowners and residents is actually no difference at all.

This Property Manager Just Wrote an Open Letter to the Local Community

Dear Residents, Homeowners, HOA members, and Neighbors,

We’ve heard both sides of the story — anecdotes from renters and HOA members alike, about the tension that often develops between people who own homes in the community and people who don’t. 

There’s a perception that renters don’t contribute to the communities they reside in, because they aren’t really part of those communities.  They can’t possibly care about the neighborhood the way a homeowner would, because they aren’t homeowners.

That’s dead wrong and perpetuates a negative stereotype that polarizes a community when it needs to be brought together.

The truth:  you have no idea what people can contribute to a community if you make them feel part of it.  Make them feel like they belong.

That’s a good hint for how we came up with the name of our company, and our mission: to help instill in residents of all kinds a genuine sense of belonging.  It’s a feeling that starts with their relationship to the house they live in and spreads from there.  The more they feel at home in their homes, the more they feel at home in their community; the more they feel motivated to improve it, invest in it, and be the best neighbors they can be.

It starts with the first time we meet potential residents.   We have a real conversation, one which goes far deeper than a simple background and credit check.  

Then, after they move in, we provide them with concierge-style service and access to our Belong Pros — a hand-selected team of craftspeople employed full-time by Belong, who are at the ready 24/7 to fix any problems that may arise over the course of their lease. 

The result is happy, prideful residents living in beautiful, pristinely maintained houses that they love as much as the homeowner does. 

From there, it’s only a short step to caring about your neighborhood the same way you care about your house. 

That’s why HOAs in the places we serve – San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, and Orange County - are so excited when Belongers move in. 

Care to learn more?  Watch this video — and then check out our website.  Or email us any time if you want to work together to make your community even stronger.

Belong

Natalie McNeal

Andrea Vale

Brett Jaffe

Tamara Epelbaum

Jane Allison Gunn

Natalie McNeal

Andrea Vale

Brett Jaffe

Tamara Epelbaum

Jane Allison Gunn