Discover our 6 favorite things about renting or owning a home in the city of Bellevue, Washington - one of the latest additions to Belong's residential network.

Belong Visits: Bellevue

As we expand up and down the west coast from our Bay Area base, we’re always working to make ourselves — and our community — feel at home wherever they are. As part of that, we are launching a coastal tour, and the first stop is  the bucolic city of Bellevue, Washington.

Across Lake Washington from Seattle is one of the hottest zip codes in the country: home to the garage that gave birth to Amazon and a perennial contender for the best city to live in America.

With the six amazing neighborhood pluses described below, is it any wonder that so many people want to live in Bellevue?  Not to us — nor will it be to you, once you see why the housing market is booming in this beautiful little city. It’s a boom that makes Belong’s ability to connect people who own much-loved homes, to those looking to become infatuated by a domicile, all the more important.

Jeff Bezos might have up and moved his empire across the lake to Seattle, but many big-name tech companies still call Bellevue home.  T-Mobile’s North American corporate headquarters is located in Bellevue, as is Expedia’s and Drugstore.com’s. Other major tech companies like Facebook and Nintendo also have big offices in the city. Bungie and Valve both have their HQs there, too, making it one of the gaming capitals of the world!

Bellevue is home to one of the best school districts in the U.S., with several of its high schools ranking in US News and World Report’s top 250; niche.com ranks the system as third-best in the country. The crown jewel of the district, the International School, ranks #27 among all traditional high schools in America, and #60 if you add in all the magnet and charter schools. We’d say “Not too shabby,” but then a recent Bellevue grad might snicker at us for using such an inelegant cliche.  

They don’t call it “The City in a Park” for nothing.  In addition to the acres of green space and sprawling parks contained within the city, the city’s also borders on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, giving residents easy access to the Snoqualmie Pass.  And of course, Mount Rainier, the most topographically prominent peak in the United States, is only 60-ish miles to the south. (The North Cascades National Park isn’t very far, either.)  If water is more your thing, then there’s plenty of fun to be had on Lake Washington, too. From skiing to waterskiing, Bellevue has it all.

True to its name, Bellevue is one of the most scenic cities in America. Not only because of the lush park system we mentioned above, but because of the breath-taking view of Seattle and Lake Washington to the west, and the snow-tipped Cascades ranging to the east. 

Of course, America is a lovely and wonderful place to live, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t observe that Bellevue isn’t very far from Vancouver,  which is another of the most exciting cities in North America. And one of the most ethnically diverse, too, with a famed Chinatown offering some of the best Chinese cuisine you can find this side of the Pacific. A quick two-and-a-half-hour drive through some of the most stunning scenery in the world, it’s the perfect daytrip. Pack your passport and come hungry.  

Bellevue is home to a number of upscale stores and shopping malls, but it is the smaller, mom-and-pop institutions that intrigue us most.  From Frans Chocolates, to the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm and Mac and Mabels, there are tons of local shopping options to choose from!

If you think you're ready to go it alone as a landlord and property manager, take this 4-question quiz.

Can I Manage My Own Rental Property? Take The Quiz

Why can't I just manage my own rental property? If you think you're ready to take this plunge, take the 4-question personality quiz that will answer the question: am I cut out to be a landlord and a property manager or should I outsource this work?

Often when talking to a homeowner who isn’t a thousand percent sold on Belong, we get asked, “Why can’t I manage my own property, by myself?”

It's a great question, because the truth is that there are people out there who can take on the responsibility of self-managing a rental property. But when you peel back the onion and really look at what’s required, it turns out those people are few and far between.

Managing a property takes a truly rare combination of personality traits. If you possess them all — and you also have ample time to dedicate to the task — then we encourage you to step up and manage the property yourself.

But if you don’t, our recommendation is to seriously consider working with a property manager (or rather, to go one better and use a modern alternative). Our simple quiz will save you and the residents of your home countless hours of stress and anxiety.

Quiz: Am I cut out to self-manage my rental property? 

Question #1: Do you have incredible patience?

When self-managing a rental property, you have to keep in mind that the home effectively belongs to the residents as well. In fact, they sometimes lose sight of the fact that the home actually belongs to you, and that you love it as much as they do.  

That’s why oftentimes the relationship between resident and homeowner can turn sour and adversarial; people forget that the interests on both sides of the equation may seem not to be aligned. But fundamentally, are.

Hence, the need for patience. You need to keep in mind that, when something goes wrong in the house — when there’s a leak, or the toilet isn’t running, or the boiler’s on the fritz — it’s your residents who are on the frontlines. It's their lives being disrupted. That’s why they’re so freaked out and upset and texting you every other second, wondering when the plumber or the boiler guy’s going to show up. 

Question #2: Do you mind being persistent to the point of annoying?

Being a property manager often means being a bother to someone else. It means calling an unresponsive contractor or craftsperson over and over until they finally pick up the phone – or respond to an email – and schedule an appointment. 

Then, after you’ve managed to schedule the appointment, it means following up with your tenants to make sure they’ll be home when the locksmith’s supposed to show up to fix that faulty door-latch in the bathroom. 

It also means being tenacious and persistent when it comes to late rent and fees. If your tenant doesn’t pay you your rent, it’s your responsibility — and yours alone — to collect. And if worse comes to worse and you need to take legal action and start the process of evicting them, that’s on you, too. 

Last point here. You need to be persistent with managing your tax situation. So being your own property manager can mean reaching out to your accountant to see if they’re taking advantage of every benefit afforded you in the changing tax laws.

All this takes the ability to be thick-skinned. To call one more times than you’re comfortable with. To use a sterner tone of voice then you’re maybe used to using. In other words, to be an effective property manager, you have to be relentless.

Question #3: Are you prepared for the workload?

The number of things you need to keep track of when you’re managing your own property is just incredible. Not only all the paperwork, which is hard enough to deal with, but all the follow-up calls you have to make, and make again, to all the people on the other side of that paperwork. That’s why even the most organized person would find self-managing to be an incredibly difficult task. 

In short, don’t be misled by the phrase “passive income.” It is often bandied about in the property management industry. But as you can see from this blog post, if you do choose to take on the responsibility yourself, the income will be anything but passive. It requires tireless dedication and endless obligation, and a very specific kind of personality that can deal with it all.

Question #4: Can you turn on the charm at will?

Though toughness is obviously key, as the old cliche goes, you win more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And in the world of self-management, there really are a ton of flies you have to deal with — a constant stream of seemingly minor obstacles and annoyances that need to be taken care of.

Lawyers. Accountants. Home inspectors. Carpenters. Plumbers. Electricians. Roofers.  Exterminators. The list goes on.

The thing is, the better these people are at their jobs, the more in demand they are. And the more in demand they are, the harder they are to get on the phone — and the less they need your business. So if you try to use some of that toughness we were talking about earlier, chances are they’ll just blow you off and deal with the hundreds of other clients they have. This is where you need to balance being stern and persistent, with knowing when to be kind and helpful so that others are more inclined to do you a favor. That’s why we say a little bit of charm goes a very long way in the self-management game.

If you've read questions 1-4 and think you've got what it takes, great! But if you're unsure about one or more and truly want your income to be passive consider Belong as an alternative to hiring a traditional property manager. Belong brings together the latest technology and high-touch concierge-level service to make property management as seamless and easy for everyone involved. Not only that, but they’ve built in protections for homeowners, like guaranteed rent, which takes the risk and anxiety out of the process altogether. 

So if you’re not the kind of person who checks boxes #1-4, make a conversation with Belong a #1 priority.

Why can't I just manage my own rental property? Take the quiz and find out if you're a cut out to be both a property manager and landlord for your rental home.

These four tell-tale signs are all you need to know.

When is it Time to Divorce Your Property Manager?

When it is time to part ways your property manager? These four tell-tale signs are all you need to know.

We’re sure you’ve heard the story of the boiling frog, which has its own Wikipedia page. If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of nice comfy warm water, and gradually turn up the heat, the frog will be slowly but inevitably cooked to death.

We’ll borrow that metaphor to describe what can happen with a property manager who – little by little – fails to deliver. You make excuses for each misstep, or you’re too busy to deal with finding a new provider, or some combination of both. You enter into a state of learned helplessness.

But that’s a condition you need to overcome. There’s no reason to be stuck in a bad relationship with a property manager. To help you know when it’s time to ask for a divorce – as opposed to when you’re just in a rough patch – here are four signals that can’t be ignored.

Responsiveness is a core attribute for property managers. It’s essential, obviously, for emergencies, but also must be ingrained as standard operating procedure. Communication is an essential part of their job. If it takes more than 24 hours for them to respond to a request, that’s a problem.  

Lateness can also become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you let it go unchecked the first time it happens, the next time it’ll be 48 hours; the time after that, it’ll be 72. So our advice is to let your property manager know what your expectations are; if you established a response window when they were hired, remind them of it in no uncertain terms. If you don't, it's never too late.

We also believe that responsiveness – or the lack of it – is an insight into the overall professionalism and standards of a property manager. If they disappoint you in the one area where you have complete visibility, imagine what things are like when the situation’s more opaque.

Property management is a business of details, and many of them are related to repairs – both expected and unexpected. Whether it’s a toilet that won’t stop running, or a furnace that barely runs, property managers are expected to arrange for maintenance, and make sure that the work is done promptly and at the highest level.

If your property manager takes a slipshod approach to that, and doesn’t follow up with your tenant – and you – to make sure that all the repairs were performed in a satisfactory way, that’s a bad sign. If it happens repeatedly – along with the other red flags identified herein – it could be grounds for divorce.

Sign #3: 'Nickel and Diming' You to Death

It could be that the agreement with your property manager entitles them to upcharge for items like first-class photography, video tours, and other necessary steps to find the right tenant.

But these charges add up fast – as do other hidden costs, like when your property manager charges you for rent when the home is vacant.

So take a good hard look at what is covered by your agreement and what isn’t. At the same time, we urge you to examine what’s involved in canceling the contract before the stated expiration date. If there are penalties for ending your relationship, that tells you a lot about the property management company’s confidence in their ability to keep landlords satisfied, without the threat of penalties.

We all know how our lives have been transformed by the move to digitization. The list of things we can now do from our phones has gone from unimaginable to expected. But what about your relationship with your property manager? Can you talk to a concierge online, 24/7? Are all your records – rent collections, repairs, the works – available electronically? 

If that’s not the case – if your property manager is still operating in a paper-and-pencil, index-card world – it’s probably time to start considering a new relationship. The amount of your valuable time that it takes to deal with the deluges of paperwork involved in owning rental property is more than you might realize; accepting an analog relationship makes you the frog in the pot!

Property management is broken. Belong instead. 

If you're experiencing these problems, you don't need a property manager. You need Belong. Why?

It doesn't need to be an emergency to get in touch with us after hours. We have a 24/7 concierge service to respond to both you and your residents. Because every enquiry is important to us and life doesn't always happen in the 9-5. 



The team at Belong pays rigorous attention to every detail. When it comes to repairs and maintenance, Belong doesn't outsource work to third-party contractors, with talented, quality-vetted Belong Pros who work to the highest standards, and document everything. 



The costs are transparent, with no charges for setup, lease renewal, video marketing, repairs. The list goes on. 



Belong is tech-forward, always. We offer dedicated apps for homeowners and residents that are part of our residential network. 

With all that – and more – as part of Belong’s offering, a break up with your current property manager may occur sooner than you realized. If you want to learn more,  the glorious details of why so many homeowners are finding Belong to be the property manager that lifts – and exceeds – their expectations, look no further than here.

When it is time to part ways with your property manager? These four tell-tale signs are all you need to know.

When is it Time to Break Up With Your Property Manager?

Tips for homeowners looking to take advantage of this monumental and forever shift toward flexibility and working from home

How Work From Home Is Changing Property Management Forever

Tips for homeowners looking to take advantage of this monumental and forever shift toward flexibility and working from home.

Working from home is here to stay. The drumbeat of statistics is deafening, no matter how you look at them. 

70% of companies are planning to adopt a hybrid model

58% of people want to work entirely at home, even post-pandemic

97% of people desire some form of remote work

The implications for anyone who has a home to rent are obvious. A WFH world creates novel priorities when it comes to finding a place to rent; people are looking at floorplans in a new way, trying to reconfigure old layouts to accommodate new ways of living and working.  

Working from home is shaping up to be a full-time reality for many people — and at least a part-time situation for others. Using a small portable table in the corner of your bedroom as a desk and the top of your dresser as a filing space is not a long-term solution. Neither is turning your couch into your office and the coffee table into your main Zoom station.

So how should homeowners set up their rental properties for success in this world? Have no fear, your trusty friends at Belong are here to help.

Assess strengths and weaknesses of the space

This is an essential and realistic place to start. You’re probably not prepared to add a greenhouse office to your property, but it’s critical to take a hard look at your property, while keeping in mind the art of the possible.

Remember that a WFH space needs a measure of quiet and privacy.  Meaning part of a kitchen or family room is not an ideal place to convert into a home office. In fact, you probably don’t want your home office to even be adjacent to such noisy spaces.  

If you have a small house, though, you might not have a huge amount of flexibility; you can’t turn a bedroom into a home office if you only have one bedroom. In that case, we have some suggestions:

Stage your kitchen so that visually it feels like it could be used as a home office. 

If the kitchen table is going to serve as a desk, set it up with a laptop and the proper work essentials, including a desk lamp. This subliminally sends the right signals to potential tenants.

Also we recommend clearing the table of kitchen paraphernalia; it shouldn’t look like the family is about the sit down to dinner. 

You can turn an unfinished attic into a charming office. Take a look at these cozy and comforting attic offices for inspiration. We are particularly drawn to the way that so many of these use the angled roofline as an architectural feature. 

If you are going to transform your attic space, we suggest that you make sure it is well-lit – many attics suffer from an absence of light – and that you liberally populate the office with plants.  When someone walks up the steps and is surrounded by green energy, they can feel it right away.

For more tips on staging your home, check out this post

Next up: Forget curb appeal, how about subterranean appeal? There are innumerable ways to reinvent your basement as a home office. These examples should get your wheels turning. Basements can be quiet hideaways that can add immediate value to your rental. 

If you want to explore options beyond the kitchen, attic, and basement, may we introduce you to…

Since we’re all working from home now, we don’t need to dress for work the same way we once did. We need fewer clothes, and therefore less space to store them.  So how about taking advantage of wardrobe shrinkage and transforming your closet into … well, a cloffice.

It may not be the most graceful coinage we’ve ever heard – sounds a bit like a Congressional procedure – but in fact, these examples from our friends at Food52 are elegant enough to distract us from the clumsiness of this particular neologism.

We’ve heard that many people are spending gloriously productive working hours outdoors, on patios and terraces, in gazebos, and under pergolas.

So when you are showing and staging your rental home, don’t forget the opportunity to demonstrate the irresistible appeal of a bucolic backyard office setting. 

Thinking about upgrading your backyard? Learn how to do it well for less money

And if you want to go the ultimate step and build a backyard office to blow the socks off any prospective tenant, remember that ADUs – or Accessory Dwelling Units – are becoming easier and easier to build in California and elsewhere. 

Which means you can not only take advantage of this legislation to build a “granny flat” or a rentable unit, but to build home offices as well. Here’s a link to a contractor who builds ADUs in San Francisco; here’s another to a marketplace of ADU builders in LA.

Now, if these improvements all sound great, but the idea of finding a contractor to execute on the plans is far less attractive, may we direct your attention to Belong.  We are a new – in fact a totally new – kind of property manager.  We take care of homeowners end-to-end, including any repairs or renovations required. Which means our teams of contractors and craftsmen (Belong Pros) can handle converting your attic, basement, or closet into an office space.

If you’re interested in learning more about a property manager like no other – for a time like no other – we’d be interested in learning about you.

Science is discovering the many benefits of plants.  Read about how they can change the way we feel – and make rental properties more appealing at the same time.

Heard of Biophilia? It Can Make Your Home More Rentable

Science is discovering the many benefits of plants. Read about how they can change the way we feel – and make rental properties more appealing at the same time.

If you are a homeowner who rents out their place, you want whoever lives there to be as happy and healthy as possible. After all, happy residents stay longer, and that means fewer vacancies to deal with.

Increasingly, research is showing the design of our homes – including the use of houseplants – has an actual impact on the way we feel. A lot of these insights are summed up in the word “biophilia” which is a fancy term that goes back to the ancient Greeks.  The underlying idea is based on the fact that when we are connected with nature – our well-being and quality of life are elevated.  They actually make us feel better and more connected to the world.

Here’s a useful article that explains the power of biophilia – and why being surrounded by plants and nature is so transformative.

We’ve all experienced the restorative power of nature; it exerts such an influence over our moods, and even our biology, that hospitals around the world are cultivating healing gardens.

The Scientific American writes that “hospital gardens help patients heal.”

There’s no shortage of ways that you can use plants to transform a home and make it not just more rentable, but more inspiring to live in. This article from one of our favorite magazines – it’s called Dwell  – has some amazing examples of green transformations. 

The good thing is that compared to expensive and time-consuming renovations, spending a small amount on plants like the popular fiddle leaf fern – which you’ve no doubt seen all over Instagram and on the cover of design magazines – makes a huge visual difference. The ever-trendy Monstera is also a plant that will elevate the experience in any home.

What’s more, your likely renters – Millennials – are deep into biophilia. Money Magazine declares “Millennials Aren’t Buying Homes, but They Are Spending Thousands on Houseplants.” Which means that by strategically placing a few houseplants around your home, you will connect with them emotionally – and encourage them to buy more plants, maintain your home beautifully, and become long-term residents.

In short, plants create a home that is easy to grow into.

Science is discovering the many benefits of plants. Read about how they can change the way we feel – and make rental properties more appealing at the same time.

SB-9 and ADUs will change the Californian landscape (and that's ok!)

The Benefits of California's Accessory Dwelling Unit Laws

When California introduced SB-9 to encourage more residents to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), some people expressed concern about the effect it will have on the character of neighborhoods in the state. Here's why we think it's an opportunity to better express the diversity that makes California so special. 

California. The name evokes images of Hollywood, gold rushes and Golden Gates, bright lights and Chinese Grumman’s theaters, vineyards, and orange groves. The land of milk and honey overflowing with opportunity. It’s long been romanticized in the collective conscious and remains, in our minds, a symbol of growth without limits. 

The truth is that, though California remains ripe with potential, it’s getting more and more crowded every day. Once the land of seemingly limitless expanses, Californians are now coming face to face with limits on expansion, on growth, and, of course, on the availability of housing. As of 2018, the state ranked 49th in terms of housing units per resident, which adds up to a shortfall of 3 to 4 million homes.   

With supply relatively stable and demand skyrocketing, simple economics dictate that prices should rise. To protect Californian residents, and in an effort to keep housing affordable, the state is loosening zoning restrictions and encouraging the development of ADUs, as a way to make up for the housing shortfall. 

The bill changing zoning restrictions as of 2020 is known as 'SB-9' and gives homeowners the ability to subdivide lots zoned for single-family houses. Many Californian homeowners are now eligible to build additional duplexes on their property, and ADUs are smaller structures (think cottages and discreet extensions to pre-existing houses) that homeowners can convert into rentable spaces.

Some in the community are concerned about the effects these laws might have on the classic Californian landscape. But look at photos of places like Brentwood in the early 1900s; the neighborhoods are unrecognizable. Change is inevitable.

In fact, part of what’s made California so special for so many years is the diversity of its landscape — from the fertile forests of the north to the arid deserts of the south — and, maybe even more essentially, the diversity of its population. Long the destination of immigrant populations from South America and Asia, the state also welcomes dreamers of all kinds from across the continent. To quote the great American author Cormac McCarthy, “The best way to live in California is to be from somewhere else.”

That’s the thing about California — it has an inexhaustible ability to reinvent itself, to contain such multitudes. Which is why we think the recent changes to the housing laws will ultimately prove beneficial to the character of the state. Unless we address the escalation in housing prices, we will see an exodus of young people – our future!  Surveys show that more than half of the population wants to leave the state.

So while we completely understand the objections to recent zoning shifts, on balance we think this kind of change — and this kind of expansively diverse uniqueness is helpful. After all, what would San Francisco be without its Chinatown? Or Los Angeles, without its Korean population? What would the state be like if it didn’t embrace the influx of Latinx cultures in the early part of the twentieth century? The more change the state welcomes, the more Californian it will ultimately be. 

Should you add an ADU to your Californian Home?

There's no straightforward right-or-wrong answer to this question, but if you can obtain the permits to add an ADU, there are plenty of incentives. In California, you may even be eligible for a grant to contribute to the cost of creating a new dwelling on your main residence. There's also the financial benefit of becoming a landlord and generating passive income from your main property. Of course, with tenants in such close proximity to your home, you don't want to leave finding the right people to chance. Find out more about to find long-term, trustworthy tenants and if your ADU would be eligible for Belong here. 

With SB-9, California's zoning laws are changing to accommodate more Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to usher in more supply and affordable rental options

How do you collect back rent from a tenant who has stopped paying? You have three options: lawyers, a property manager, or Belong (where you never need to ask)

Collecting Rent From Tenants Who Don't Pay

Sometimes tenants fall behind on rent. Even if you've done everything right and have responsible tenants, it can happen in a volatile economic situation. So what do you do when you need to collect back rent from a tenant? 

If you are self-managing a rental property, things are bound to get awkward when a tenant falls behind on rent. Awkward isn't the worst thing though, if the situation drags on, it could quickly turn hostile. Next thing you know you’re hiring collection agencies, researching lawyers, trying to find the best way out of a bad situation. 

There’s a reason why the stress of collecting rent — and the idea of chasing down back rent — is the big hold-up when it comes to new and inexperienced landlords entering the market. 

There are three solutions to this problem:

Call in the lawyers and collection agencies to apply pressure

Partner with Belong (so you never need to ask)

Hiring a property manager to collect rent from tenants


A common solution to avoiding having to play bad cop with your tenants is to hire a property manager. If you're contemplating hiring a property management company to collect on your behalf, make sure you ask exactly how they handle this kind of situation — and who’s on the hook for potential legal fees. 

If you partner with Belong, your rent is guaranteed 

The other (we would say better!) solution is to partner with Belong, so you never have to ask about rent again. Belong offers Guaranteed Rent, allowing homeowners to choose whether they receive rent on the first of every month, or even the entire year upfront. Regardless of when tenants pay, your cash flow is never disrupted from what you signed up for. 

To do some back-of-the-napkin math on how much you could earn with Belong, use the calculator below or learn more here. 

Learn how to show prospective renters through your property with a virtual open home or video walkthrough, increasing your reach to potential new tenants.

Virtual Open Homes: 5 Tips For Offering Video Inspections For Rentals

The virtual open home is here, with many prospective renters now opting for a video walkthrough over in-person inspections. How can landlords who are self-managing their rental properties adjust to this new reality and offer a professional-level digital experience to attract new tenants? 

Among the many challenges involved with self-managing your own home is presenting the property in an elegant and professional manner when listing it online. Today's smartphone cameras have made taking high-quality photographs easier than ever, but these days potential residents are looking for more than simple pictures: they want video tours and 3D walkthroughs, which provide a far more immersive experience. 

It's much more challenging – and more expensive – to take a good video than it is a good picture. Or so it would seem. The truth is though that you don’t need to invest thousands of dollars in a DSLR camera. With a smartphone and a few inexpensive attachments, you can create a high-quality virtual open home without breaking the bank.

Follow these five tips to creating a professional virtual tour to rent your home:

Virtual Open House Tip #1: Invest in the right equipment

The right tools are essential, of course, but you don’t need to go overboard when preparing for virtual walkthroughs. In fact, you probably have the necessary equipment in your back pocket. The three most recently released iPhones come with suitable wide-angle lenses, as do many Android devices. And if you have a more recent model, a clip-on lens can work wonders. Not only will wide-angle shots make a room look extra spacious, they better replicate the experience of actually seeing the space. 

Newer smartphone cameras also take great close-ups, thanks to portrait mode. Use this feature to highlight the details that make your property special – like elegant trim and granite countertops. 

To give your virtual home tour an extra layer of professionalism, consider a video stabilizer. They’re both cheaper and easier to transport than traditional tripods, and they give the video a smooth and polished quality. Additionally, a lapel microphone allows for crisp narration, which will add a personal element.

Virtual Open House Tip #2: Prepare the space

The better the video, the more important it is to pay attention to the small details. Dirt and grime that might not show on a low-resolution video can be quite apparent in HD, so be as fastidious about cleanliness as you would be for an in-person tour. 

It’s also worth staging the home as you would for an open house, showcasing your home's unique details. If the living room has a beautiful parquet floor, make sure to show it off; if you recently installed a beautiful farmhouse sink in the master bathroom, let the camera linger on it for a few extra seconds. Future residents want to see a comfortable home, but one they can still make their own; touches like these help strike the right balance, letting the home feel lived-in, but not so filled that there’s no room for their unique personalities.  

Finally, it’s critical to highlight outdoor spaces (if your home has them). This is, after all, where most of us do our entertaining these days!

Virtual Open House Tip #3: Time your shoot with the best light

Everything from the time of day to the time of year can affect the mood of your walkthrough. A slightly overcast day with lots of indirect sunlight will highlight your space best. As for timing, late morning is ideal – this ensures you don’t run out of daylight. The key is practicing in the days leading up to your final shoot.

If needed, a clip-on ring light will help counter bad weather. Avoid the yellow settings, though, which may give the space a dated look.

After you’ve cleaned and staged the home, make a list of the shots you need to show the place in the best light. It helps to sketch a floor plan, and then imagine which rooms you would show first during an in-person tour. 

It’s wise to take a practice video, to help figure out the best way to transition between wide-angle establishing shots that show each room in its full glory, and close-ups that capture the unique details. Don’t worry about it being perfect, though – you can clean up transitions at the editing stage. 

Virtual Open House Tip #5: Edit, edit, edit

There is a plethora of editing software available for reasonable rates. To amp up your iPhone’s powerful camera, use FiLMiC Pro – priced at just $15 a month. 

There are lots of editing tips out there, but the best way to keep your video professional is to use smooth transitions when putting together raw footage. Make sure the shots before and after transitions are a mix of wide shots and close-ups to keep the video eye-catching. Don’t use splashy effects, which can detract from the home itself. Instead, opt for sleek and seamless. Remember that potential residents will want to see your rental as you see it: a place to call home.

Get videos and a 3D virtual tour at no extra cost with Belong

When working with Belong, you'll get professional-level pictures, videos, and even a 3D virtual tour of your property – without an upcharge for the service. Plus, Belong takes care of listing the home, conducting in-person tours, and running background checks for each and every potential tenant, to ensure you find a resident who loves your home as much as you do. Without the stress of doing it all yourself. Learn more about Belong and find out if your property is eligible here.

Successful property management is as much about attitude as it is about knowledge. Here are 4 mindset hacks for landlords self-managing a rental home.

These 4 Mindset Hacks Will Make You a Better Property Manager

Successful property management is as much about attitude as it is about knowledge.

We’ve written a great deal about the technical and functional aspects of being a property manager. But knowing how to approach solving a problem is just as important as the solution itself. We know from lots of areas in life – diet and nutrition, money management – that how we approach a project has an enormous impact on how effectively it gets done.

It’s the difference between knowing the solution to a mathematical equation and the theory that helps you arrive at the solution: the theory you could argue is even more important, because it’s more broadly applicable. And as anyone who’s ever managed a property can tell you, there’s no predicting what kinds of problems will crop up over time.   

To put it another way: You need to be in the right frame of mind throughout the entirety of the task in order to be a successful property manager.  To help you get there, we’ve put together these helpful hints to “train your brain” to deal with the expected and impossible-to-avoid challenges of managing your own property. Not only will they improve your skills as a  property manager, but they’ll help reduce stress and give you time back for the other things in life that matter to you.

Stress is an endemic reality with property management. It can come from anywhere – from dealing with maintenance issues, or because of personality issues with your tenant.   

Add to the stress of being a property manager the exacerbating effects of Covid. It’s making our tempers flare, as we go from 0 to 60 on the anger meter in a heartbeat. And that’s for people who don’t even have to deal with the pressures that come with self-managing a property. Even in the best of times, there is no shortage of reasons why a property manager might fly off the handle. 

If you’re going to self-manage you need to get ahead of the stress by slowing your brain’s response patterns down. Which gives you time to recognize what’s happening, so you can do something about it before it’s too late and the anger genie is out of the bottle.

Here are some great “temper-taming tips” from the Mayo Clinic.

2. Learn to expect and accept disappointment

Property management involves managing plumbing and electricity, of course, but it also always involves a level of managing disappointment. The rent doesn't arrive on time. The sink that the plumber supposedly fixed starts leaking again. The three contractors who promised you a bid last week have fallen off the face of the earth.

No one likes to feel out of control, which is what happens when your well laid plans go awry, and frustrations pile up. The best way to deal with disappointment is to take control of the negative thoughts, instead of letting them dominate you. Learn to accept, develop back-up plans, and maintain the practice of positive thinking. These tips from Healthline will set you on the right path. Managing your negative thoughts will work wonders in helping you manage your property.

If you’re not someone who feels an urge to get things done perfectly, then you can skip this section. But if you are plagued by fears of the asymmetrical and less-than-ideal, and are you unhappy when you feel your personal standards aren’t met, by you or by others, then read on.

Perfectionism can be a recipe for stress and unhappiness, or even worse, depression, as this valuable article from Psychology Today reminds us. If you’re managing property, there will always – repeat always – be things that can be done better, or in a more timely fashion, or for less money. Obsessing over them will wear you down in a toxic way. Here’s a great blog we found on how to overcome the daily emotional wear-and-tear of perfectionism.

You have a home you are invested in, either financial, emotionally - or both. It's understandable to think you need to take all the responsibility yourself, maybe even save yourself some money. But the realities of self-managing a property can be intense, so if you feel burnout coming on, the best thing to do would be to let go of the day-to-day. Let Belong take it all off your hands so you can focus on what you do best, instead of figuring out how to do it all. With guaranteed rent and a concierge available 24/7 to both you and your tenants, disappointment will be a thing of the past. Learn more at belonghome.com/homeowners

How do I rent out a property as a landlord, but live far away? Do I need a property manager or can I manage myself? We answer FAQs on owning interstate rentals

Long-Distance Landlord: How To Manage a Rental Home From Afar

Whether you had to move for work or picked up a steal of a property in another city, it’s not uncommon to live far away from a home you rent out. Even more so in 2024. With many homeowners holding onto interest rates too good to give up, renting out a home is often a better option when opportunity knocks in another city. 

This is why we get asked so often, “How do I rent out a property when I live far away?” 

Particularly if you’re considering the DIY self-management route, there’s a lot to consider before taking on the challenge from another state. It’s not impossible, but here are six questions to consider first. 

6 questions to consider before self-managing a rental home out-of-state

1. How often can I travel to my rental home? 


When preparing your home for the rental market, you will need to get it move-in ready. You’ll need to arrange a deep clean, attend to repairs and have professional photographs and video taken for your online listing. These are not remote tasks. Someone will need to be at the home to let in contractors, cleaners, and a real estate photographer.

If you travel to your rental home, be sure to keep accurate records of everything from your trip. You may be eligible to claim some costs such as airfares, hire car and petrol, even hotel accommodation as a tax expense for managing your rental home. 

If travel is too far or just not a viable option, is there someone you trust close by that you could enlist for help? This is where having a property manager or modern alternative like Belong can make the process much smoother, taking care of all preparations and listings on your behalf. If you do hire someone to manage the process, you can claim these fees at tax time too. 

Discover Belong: The best alternative to Property Management in Seattle, Redmond, Oakland, and many more cities across California, Texas, Utah, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Washington State.     


When you live far away from your rental home, how you collect rent is another consideration. Checks and cash are out of the question! Thankfully, paying rent online is commonplace these days — not to mention safer. 

But before you choose an online platform, be aware that using popular peer-to-peer online payment apps like PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App can leave you open to disputes and rent payment fraud. While simple and user-friendly, they are not designed for landlords or rent collection. 

There’s also the issue of late payments. Do you have the time and resources to follow up and stay on top of unpaid rent bills from out of state? Aside from the time, effort and stress, the reality is that mortgage and expenses don’t stop adding up when the rent goes unpaid.

This is why guaranteed rent is Belong’s most popular product. It’s proven and beloved by over 2,000 Belong homeowners, who receive their rental income like clockwork (no matter when the residents pay).

Read More: How Guaranteed Rent is Changing Property Management Forever

3. Who will manage home tours and inspections?


Property management is not a set-and-forget kind of job. Aside from the initial tours to lease the home, inspections can help to monitor wear and tear or damage. It’s also an opportunity to connect with your residents to make sure they’re happy and are sticking to the conditions of the lease agreement.

You could opt for video inspections if you have established a good relationship with your tenant. But if this is a new lease or you ask residents to show you around virtually, you could miss important clues to damage or repair needs on the property. 

This is another reason why many long-distance rental owners prefer to hire someone to manage the home for them. If you still want to DIY, you’ll need to enlist some local help for the role of on-site inspections. This could be a trusted friend, an employee, or a service such as Inspectify, who can arrange an inspection report on-site. 

4. How easily can I access good local contractors? 


If there’s a maintenance or repair issue in your rental home, how soon can you respond from afar? It’s an important question for out-of-state landlords, because how you resolve issues is a reflection of your professionalism and can avoid minor issues from turning into costly headaches. 

If you’re fielding maintenance requests from out of state, you will need to have fast access to good local contractors close to your rental home. This is easier said than done, with the US experiencing a major labor shortage in most trades that homeowners need. With so much work to go around, contractors are often drawn to large jobs that pay the most. This can leave rental homeowners waiting months for repairs and maintenance. 

If you don’t have good local knowledge or access to contractors, Belong can help. Our expert team will handle all resident communication and have an extensive vendor network of over 10,000 contractors for fast maintenance and repairs.

Read More: Why Ignoring Rental Home Maintenance Could Cost You More Than Repairs

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