Discover the surprising connection between the most physical of assets, and the most virtual of them.

Cryptocurrency and The Security Of Belonging

We discovered a surprising connection between the most physical of assets - the home - and the most virtual of them, cryptocurrency. Everyone is looking for a sense of security and belonging. 

Here at Belong, we think there is a reason that the word “real” comes before “estate.”  We believe in the power of home.  The value of a tangible investment.  

A lot of people agree with us: At this point in American history, more than 67 percent of us own our own homes. This is up from 47 percent at the beginning of the 20th century, which is especially impressive, considering the nature of the economy back then.

But at the same time, homeownership is not for everyone. As we say in our Vision:

“There is more than one American Dream. Owning your own home and loving it is one of those dreams... But there are other American Dreams.

Some of these dreams are about living differently than previous generations — for whom owning was everything. We may want to use the cash to start a business — perhaps the next Belong-. We may want to experience new places. We may not have the money yet for homeownership, but still, dream of living in a glorious home where we can put down roots and experience the sense of belonging.”

We’ve quoted John Allen before, who is the author of the book Home. (The book is subtitled “How Habitat Made Us Human,” which we think cuts to the quick of the matter.)	In the book Allen poignantly writes that “We know we have been successful in creating a new home when a dwelling feels like the one place in the world that belongs to us more than anyone else."

We’ve never found a better description, anywhere, of what Belong does. How it makes people feel. People don’t need a deed to experience a deep down sense of belonging.

So, home matters. Concreteness matters. But at the same time, let’s talk for a moment – just as everyone else is doing – about cryptocurrency.  There’s nothing more intangible than a $60,000 digital asset, backed only by the fact that someone is willing to pay $60,001 for it. 

And while crypto ownership is generally pegged at 14% of Americans (some estimates have it at nearly 50%, although that is debatable), that’s still a lot of people who’ve decided to invest in a virtual currency that was scoffed at even less than a decade ago.

How, then, do we reconcile the need for something tangible and the acceptance of a currency that has nothing of physical substance behind it?

The answer comes back to our name. Although Bitcoin is decentralized, as an article in the Financial Times writes, it is a network “defined by distinctive rituals, symbols and creation myths.” The article goes on to quote Mick Morucci, an anthropologist working in crypto, who writes that “Bitcoin community’s value systems and rituals . . . have helped to establish it as money (whose price is shaped) by community, beliefs and a sense of belonging.”

Looking at it through his clarifying lens, the same human emotion that draws people to the safety and security of home – and to the neighborhoods and communities where we live – attracts them to the shared values and community that exists in CryptoWorld. 

A blog post by Suhitesh Das – a venture capitalist and advisor – makes a similar point.  He argues that “Belonging can be easily related to cryptocurrency” because it is encrypted, noting that the same “sense of security is what people also experience with belongingness.”

We are now more inspired than ever to extend the state of belonging that exists between people and their homes, to a state of connections that flourishes within the larger Belong community.  Importantly, Das also writes that “Belonging is actually about recognizing oneself as a member of a community, and the higher-quality relationships that come with it.”

That community also connects everyone who works at Belong and shares the same mission – to our homeowners and residents. 

Fascinating, isn’t it, that whether you invest in a modern home or a modern currency, a desire to belong is behind it all.

Self-managing a rental property means more money in your bank account, but it's also stressful and time consuming. We look into where to find a happy medium.

To Self-Manage Your Rental Property or Hire a Property Manager?

Self-managing means more money in your bank account – but it also means more stress and time spent caring for the property. Many homeowners ask if there’s a happy medium – we dive into that here.

Self-managing your own rental property presents a unique set of challenges: You have to market and show the house yourself, background check potential tenants, and draw up a binding lease agreement. Once the resident has moved in, you have to collect rent, attend to all their problems, and find contractors to make the repairs that you can’t handle yourself. 

That last part can be particularly difficult, especially in this day and age, when decent tradespeople are few and far between. You’ll likely have to spend hours researching contractors online, browsing Angi and Yelp, scouring Facebook groups and NextDoor, even consulting with neighborhood message boards. All in all, managing your own rental home is a mountain of work.

The possibility of hiring a traditional property manager – and not having to worry about the complexities mentioned above – is a tempting alternative. However, this option presents its downsides. First and foremost, traditional property managers often overcharge for their services, making it difficult for you to maximize your income. Traditional property managers also have less incentive than you, the owner, to treat a home with the love it deserves. You know all the wonderful nooks and crannies of your home, and it feels practically like a family member. But to a traditional property manager, your property is just another entry on a long, long list.

So let’s be honest.  Neither of the above options is ideal — managing your own property can drain your time and energy, while hiring a traditional property manager can lead to mistreatment of the home and the misuse of your money.

There are a few things you can do, however, to make self-managing a property a viable alternative. Here are some of the “middle ground” options we alluded to in our headline.

Instead of using NextDoor and Yelp and Angi to find individual contractors on a case-by-case basis, find a local handyman you can trust and rely on. He (or she) should have their own network that you can take advantage of, to fill in any expertise gaps.

Also we recommend making friends with those who live nearby your rental property. That way, if there’s an emergency and you can’t get a hold of your handyman or your home’s resident, they can potentially pop over and take a look themselves. Obviously they’re not going to be able to fix a big problem, but still they should be able to give you a sense of the scope of the issue. And, of course, if they have lived in the neighborhood for a while, they are likely to be able to add to your Rolodex of support.

There are a lot of great software platforms out there specifically designed for Homeowners to help with everything from rent collection to organizing and itemizing documents you’ll need come tax season. Investopedia has a list of the seven best programs. 

Your resident is always going to be your first line of defense – your eyes and ears.  When a problem occurs, they’ll be the first to know. So identifying residents who are super-responsible and vigilant is especially critical if you’re going to self-manage.

It’s also important that you find residents who love your home as much as you do, and who are willing to pitch in when needed. For example, if there’s a property-threatening problem with a simple fix, in an ideal world you want a resident who’s willing to provide a temporary fix, before the real experts can show up.

4. Ditch the property manager for a modern alternative

Belong is has ditched the property management model to provide the services you have been waiting for – the happy medium that has never existed in property management. Whether you go it alone or get the full-service treatment, Belong can support your path to financial freedom. 

Our smarter, future-ready services include:

Guaranteed rent every month, regardless of if or when your residents pay

Optimized rental pricing that uses technology and real-time demand to price your home with accuracy

The Belong app that gives you and your residents access to everything you need

Innovative financial products including the option to spread maintenance payments over the term of your lease agreement

Access to dedicated landlords insurance to protect your asset (as well as coverage for your residents)

Integration with the most popular rental platforms to get your home loved faster

Instant access to an expansive vendor network of over 10,000 professionals that can handle everything from routine repairs to home upgrades

…and we’re just getting started! Belong is simplifying the rental experience and helping more homeowners reach their financial goals through real estate. Visit our homeowner's page to find out more about services in places like Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Oakland, Miami and many, many more.

If you're asking yourself "should I invest in a rental property", you also need to consider "am I cut out to be a landlord?" If not, help is here.

Investing in Rental Property Is Easy, Managing It Isn't

With housing shortages biting and rental prices increases, many are asking "should I invest in a rental property?". With that comes another question: are you ready to take on the responsibility of being a landlord? 

When you have some money to invest, it's natural to start looking at whether to invest in property vs. the stock market. It's a subject long debated by financial professionals around the globe. Sadly, there's no easy answer. 

This article from Forbes says it well: “It’s impossible to adequately compare the returns of privately held individual real estate investments to the broad-based stock market.” MillionAcres makes the same point: “This question of real estate vs. stocks is tough to answer. There’s no way to reliably gauge individual investment property returns on a wide scale.”

What we can say reliably is that when it comes to analyzing the pros and cons of investing in real estate, one thing that always comes up is the stress and strain of being a landlord. Many homeowners new to rental ownership consider managing a property themselves to save money, without necessarily understanding the level of work that is required. 

Property management is not a simple task. Just take a look at Investopedia’s entry on the subject of rental property ownership: they ask “ Do you know your way around a toolbox? How are you at repairing drywall or unclogging a toilet?". Landlords need to respond to tenants whenever problems arise, even when it's inconvenient. Then there's the economic impact of vacancies between tenants and collecting overdue rent. If you're not well prepared or don't have a lot of time on your hands, it can get very stressful, very quickly. 

The alternative to self-managing a rental property

What if there was a way you could remove all of the stress of being a landlord, without forking over tons of your hard-earned cash to a traditional property management company? Would it make the decision easier? 

Here are some of the many ways that Belong is making things easy, by creating a simple, tech-forward option for those self-managing with the option to outsource all the hard work, too: 

Guaranteeing rent for homeowners, regardless of when it’s paid by residents



Providing real 24/7 customer support for both homeowners and residents (not just logging maintenance emergencies)



Not charging hidden fees like setup costs and lease renewal charges



Providing cutting-edge marketing and video tours at no extra cost



Taking a human approach to placing the right long-term residents that match your home



Shielding owners from costly evictions if we ever place the wrong people



An app that puts everything at your fingertips — from documentation and cash flow insights to finance and insurance solutions 



Connecting you with the most expansive, vetted vendor network of more than 10,000 professionals that can handle everything from regular repairs to full renovations



Offering insurance solutions that protect you, your home, and your residents



Innovating financial solutions for managing cash-flow on your terms, letting you split the cost of repairs, maintenance, and even your placement fee



Using true market data and real-time interest from potential residents to maximize the value of your home


While making a real estate investment requires a thorough analysis on your personal financial situation, with Belong’s ability to take the time and complexity out of being a landlord, you can definitely take those frustrations out of your decision process. Learn more about how Belong is making long-term renting lovable in cities like San Diego, Oakland, Redmond and Tampa. 

By taking a human approach to the rental market and going above and beyond for both homeowners and residents, Belong is redefining property management.

Taking A Unique Approach to Property Management

Looking for a property manager near you? It’s not just about geography. In this article we remind people of the connection they have to their homes, demonstrate how hard it is to find the right residents, and discuss how Belong is solving these problems.

The ideal property manager is one who recognizes a home is not just a deed or an address.  It has much more meaning.

That’s the reason why Belong goes out of its way to avoid certain terms and phrases that bring to mind the worst qualities of the real estate industry. “Landlord,” for instance, seems like a relic from feudal times. “Tenant” can make someone feel like a second-class citizen.

So is it any wonder, when one side’s given so much power at the expense of the other, that the landlord-tenant relationship can turn adversarial so easily?

Instead of “landlord,” Belong uses the word “homeowner.” Not only is it friendlier, but it’s more accurate, too. Because most of the people who turn their houses over to  Belong aren’t traditional landlords. By and large, they aren’t professional investors.  They don’t own a fleet of buildings and apartments that they’re constantly renting out. 

Some are in the process of downsizing, but aren’t quite ready to give up the family home — maybe they imagine that someday their children or their children’s children will want to move back in; others are “accidental homeowners,” who’ve inherited the property from a family member who’s passed away.  They see an opportunity to generate passive income, but critically, they aren’t opportunists. 

Learn more about the pros – and cons – of owning a rental property

They are people who love their homes, who have an emotional attachment to them, and want the next residents to feel the same way.  They care about putting the right people in their homes, first and foremost.

That’s why Belong works so hard to match the right residents to the right homes.  Of course,  credit checks, identity checks, and criminal background checks are all industry standard.

Belong goes above and beyond those basics, personally interviewing each and every potential resident.  Finding the perfect person – or couple or family – means they will take great care of the house, and also stay in it longer.   Which reduces vacancies. Stability is a good thing.

But finding the right resident is just the beginning of the journey, not the end of it. What if you could ditch property management services to modernize your entire rental experience? Belong does exactly that, combining industry-busting technology with human smarts to make renting lovable for both homeowners and their residents.

The sharing economy is redefining ownership and the home is no different. Find out how Belong is redefining what it means to have a place you call your own home

Home Ownership - The Ship Has Sailed

Something profound has changed in the world. Belong is completely redefining what “ownership” means.

Once, we bought vinyl records and cassettes and finally CDs. (Some are still buying vinyl - but that’s another story.) Now our music comes streaming at us in endless torrents of code, and we don’t miss holding the songs in our hands – because we can still hold them in our heads.

It’s exactly the same with movies; Netflix has more than 200 million subscribers. When was the last time you bought a Blu-Ray disc? As a recent example of the virtual world’s ascension, consider the definition of ownership is fundamentally changing. As the latest example, take the NFT phenomenon.

If you haven’t heard about NFTs or “non-fungible tokens” – they are virtual goods that are recorded permanently on the blockchain. That could be the much-publicized (and sometimes-derided) cryptoart created by Beeple which sold for an astounding $69 million. 

Which brings us to Belong, where our mission is to give people the powerful emotional anchor of being rooted in a safe, enveloping, protective space. Ownership has nothing really to do with that; in fact, till you pay off the dreaded mortgage – and most people never do - you don’t really own it, anyway. 

Besides, our species evolved to be attached to shelter and homes long before the idea of “ownership” became a thing.  As Dr. John S. Allen, a neuroanthropoligist, points out in his wonderful book called “Home: How Habitat Made Us Human” that we were hard-wired over millennia to find emotional rewards in the concept and reality of home. (That was long before FHA mortgages.) He writes: “The feelings we associate with home are built on a cognitive foundation that we inherited from our ancestors.” Allen also notes that “We may understand houses from the outside looking in, but home is made from the inside out.”

In other words, Allen is saying that the deep feelings that wash over us when we’re at home have nothing to do with a physical deed. You can be moved by streaming a Taylor Swift song – no ownership required. And the feeling of opening your front door and being greeted by a fast-moving three-year-old and a hug, says “home” on the most fundamental, John Allen-ian level.

This perfectly sums up what we are committed to at Belong. I wasn’t aware of Allen’s work when I wrote the Belong vision document, but the ideas are perfectly aligned. In it, we talk about the fact that owning a home is just one kind of American Dream, but there are other equally valid paths, because we all “dream of living in a glorious home where we can put down roots and experience the sense of belonging.”

Our vision goes on to say that “We call ourselves Belong because want to make these dreams a reality…and serve the millions who love the idea of a house they can call home, but don’t love the idea of homeownership.”

At Belong we try not to overuse the word “rent” because it sounds so feudal – as does the word “landlord.” Anyone who was stereotyped as a “renter” has become a “resident” in Belong’s world. As a resident, they feel the powerful tug of belonging, and that connection means they care about the place they live in as if they owned it.

After all, as Professor Allen says, our homes helped up adapt as a species; we are all here today because we took care of the places we lived in with our families, and didn’t neglect them. Which is why the tired old expression “nobody ever washed a rented car” doesn’t apply at all to the way that our residents treat their homes.

Many economists describe the post-ownership world as the “sharing economy,” and there is a great deal of truth to that. Today you can rent or share everything from a dog to art to chickens. A great deal of it is driven by Millennials and Gen Z, who are not nearly as attached to physical as previous generations, and value experiences. When you invest your capital in a home - the ultimate “thing” – it is a mathematical certainty for 99.5% of the pupation that it will leave less disposable income for experiences. Which, though ephemeral, are profoundly meaningful, and in fact emotionally enduring.

I think this is a healthy trend, although it might be fighting against our hard-wiring. “You have to learn to share” is a grindingly familiar parental and teacher refrain, after all. But somehow, we are at least in part moving beyond it, and that can be a healthy sign for society.

At Belong we are doing our best to advance this trend, by creating productive, healthy, sustainable new relationships between people who own houses, and those who want to build their lives in them.

To return to “Home,” the book quotes the architects Charles Moore, Gerald Allen, and Donyln Lyndon, who write: “Its site is only a tiny place of the real world, yet this place is made to seem like an entire world.”

Created to connect homeowners who love their homes, with residents ready to move in and build their lives there, Belong is a tech-enabled platform that takes the bumps, frustrations, and uncertainties out of the experience – to create delightful interactions from Day One to Day Forever. Bringing the practices of leading hospitality companies to an industry that was marked by a lack of caring and manual processes – Belong reinvents every step of the journey, all the way through to Belong Pros who are talented, responsible, and prideful contractors. Each component we touch is an opportunity to advanced our mission. No matter which side of the marketplace you are on, Belong honors your role and the communities we serve.

A reflection on what it means to love your house – and how to share that love with the people you rent it to.

A Message to Property Managers on Valentine’s Day

On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, which seems to grow in commercial intensity every year – we’d like to reflect on an aspect of love that is central to what we do at Belong.

After all, our mission is to connect much-loved houses with people who will love them back. And there is absolutely no doubt that people do love their houses. Google can confirm that; there are over 7 billion hits for the simple yet evocative phrase “I love my house.”

Perfection is not the point, though, it’s not the predicate for love, not the reason you smile inside every time you arrive back home. As Paul McCartney sang in the song “I Love This House”:

“Holes in the gutters, holes in the slate, holes in the carpet but I won't evacuate.

I love this house, it's where I’ll stay, eat and sleep the night and day.

I love this house, it's where I’ll be, for you to spend some time with me…”

Putting aside slate/evacuate – not one of McCartney’s most elegant rhymes – it’s a relatable message, especially if you are a homeowner with more than one house. Because when the time came and you didn’t need to live in one of those houses – maybe you no longer needed someplace that big, or you moved out-of-the-town – you didn’t treat it like a clinical asset and sell it. It embodied too much meaning for you to do something like that, so you decided to keep it and hopefully find someone to live in it who would feel the same way. Someone who could build a parallel stream of memories. 

Before we started Belong, we took a close look at the way property managers treated houses. And we didn’t like what we saw.  There was an absence of love and caring – in fact there was even basic respect. So we decided to create something different; not to be too saccharine, but at Belong, we go about our work with a sense of responsibility to Home Love. We want to be a company built on the mission of sending every day Valentines. 

We do that thanks to the platform we have built, which combines what technology can do best – organize, communicate, track, and streamline – with what people can do best. If the secret of a successful relationship between two people is “responsiveness” and “anticipation” – then we believe the same applies to how we connect with the houses we love.

The Belong platform will respond to needs literally in the moment. Our Concierges are there 24/7, whenever a need arises, no matter how big, or how small. After all, as we all know, sometimes the smallest gestures and the simplest reminders that you’re there for someone can have the biggest impact.

But thinking ahead – the Art of Anticipation – is also an essential signifier of love. It’s tricky in People World, but not that complicated in House World. We know when the furnace filters need to be changed, when to check the weatherstripping, when to have the leaders and gutters cleaned – and all those moments can be programmed into an intuitive digital platform.

That’s one way technology can automate love, but come to think of it, when 1800Flowers reminds you of Valentine’s Day a week in advance – or an upcoming anniversary – isn’t that the same thing?

In a world that is growing scarier and more unpredictable by the day, the emotional power and state-of-love that a home represents has never meant more. In 2019, the National Book Award went to a book that was a memoir about…a house. Called “The Yellow House: A Memoir,” the book – by Sarah M. Broom – uses the titular house as the centerpiece for a narrative about family, New Orleans, and community. Broom’s description of how she felt when the house was destroyed by Katrina is a powerful description of what a house can mean:

“When the house fell down, it can be said, something in me opened up. Cracks help a house resolve internally its pressures and stresses, my engineer friend had said. Houses provide a frame that bears us up. Without that physical structure, we are the house that bears itself up. I was now the house.”

If you feel that way about the house you own, if want someone to live in it who understands that –  and want someone to manage it who doesn’t look at your home like a collection of walls and windows, but as a structure with a living past, present and future – we invite you to reach out to us. On Valentine’s Day, or any day.

Expanding your portfolio is a big step; our guide will walk you through the decision process

The Rental Property Owner’s Ultimate Dilemma: “Should I Stop at One?”

Expanding your portfolio is a big step; our guide will walk you through the decision process.

Whether you are a parent or not, you have no doubt heard the adage that having two children isn’t twice the work of having just one – it’s a lot more. There’s no doubt that a similar calculation can be applied to rental properties. For those who are renting out one home and are thinking about doubling up, we’ve put together this useful framework that will help you make this very consequential decision. 

The first question we’d pose is how long you’ve owned your current property. The reason is simple: unless you’ve owned a rental property for two or more years, you won’t have a clear idea of exactly what is involved. A year simply doesn’t provide complete visibility into all the moving parts of managing a rental. Think about all the expected and unexpected maintenance issues (including finding and managing contractors), the stress and pressure that comes from dealing with tenants, and the potential lack of predictability on the income side, which can wreak havoc on your cash flow. There’s so much that can go wrong with a rental property, it’s impossible that you encounter every problem in such a contracted timespan.  

Once you’ve reflected on these inevitabilities, and have decided that you can cope with at least twice as many, then it’s time for the other considerations that come into play. Needless to say, the first issue will be how you will finance the property. If you have excess capital and that’s not a concern, then the question is what percentage of your assets should be concentrated in real estate. 

David Swensen, a respected investment guru who successfully managed the Yale pension fund for many years, believes that no more than 20% of your assets should be allocated to real estate – not including the value of your home. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it is a good yardstick to make sure you are reasonably balanced between real estate, equities, fixed-income investments, and other asset classes.

If you’re comfortable with the capital allocation, the next step is how you will pull together the money.  If you have what you need in cash or cash equivalents – like a money fund – then it will be relatively easy to find the capital for a down payment. But even if you can do that, you might want to consider a “cash-out” refinance, which means you would take a larger mortgage on your current property, and use the proceeds (all or some) for a mortgage on your expanding real-estate empire. 

Deciding whether to take cash out of an existing property by refinancing, or liquidating other assets – or a combination of both – is an important financial exercise, and you will probably want to consult an accountant or advisor before making the final call.  

As part of your decision-making process, you should consider the tax implications of the entire transaction, including potential capital gains and losses that might result from selling stock or other assets to accumulate the down payment required for your next rental property. Every action has a reaction, in other words.

There’s another perspective that should be considered as part of the overall analysis, and that is the overall real estate market where you are considering an investment – which includes both housing prices, and also rental prices; both will influence your decision. There are a lot of dependencies at work, which complicates the situation. For example, if prices are high, it will be more difficult to afford a second property. But at the same time, assuming your first rental property is in the same area, it means you are more likely to benefit from the strong market. 

At the same time, there’s the relative strength of the rental market; currently, the demand is there, especially with millennials. The New York Times recently noted:  “As more millennials seek to become first-time homebuyers in this immensely competitive pandemic market, many are finding that renting is the only option — even though they have the income and down payment required to make a purchase”

The fact is that there’s a real housing shortage across America, and experts are saying that the housing shortage will “continue for years to come.” The pandemic is a big driver of this – people are leaving cities and moving to the suburbs and exurbs for more space, especially as work-from-home becomes the New Normal. So even if prices seem high now – and you are worried about a bubble – if you take the long-view, real estate tends to be a smart place to put your money.

The last point here is that if you do decide to invest in a second home, it might be time to set up an LLC – a limited liability company – as a new taxable entity. As you would expect us to say by now, there are pros and cons for taking that step. Here’s a good overview, but we advise you to review everything with a tax professional.

To return to where we started, though, how you decide to manage your property will also enter into your decision. If you are currently self-managing and are on the fence about a second property because of the work and stress, it’s likely time to consider a property manager. But – spoiler art – not just any property manager.

Specifically, we’re thinking of Belong. Belong is truly the 21st-century property manager; we bring the best of technology together with a 24/7 Concierge team for an end-to-end solution.   From our crews of Belong Pros available for getting your place rental ready, to creating our free photography and video tours that will find you the best possible tenants – at the best possible price -  there’s nothing we can or won’t do. 

Oh, did we mention our legendary rent guarantee? Yeah, that too. And if you decide to sell the place, we will deduct any management fees you’ve paid us from the commission due.  

 If you want to learn more – and there are a lot more goodies that await -  just ask!  

If you own an investment property, buying more and expanding your rental portfolio is a big step. This guide will walk you through the decision process.

Communication, collaboration, and innovation: These are three pillars of the work philosophy at real estate startup business and residential network, Belong.

The Way We Work

Here is a snapshot on how we think about work at Belong.

Much of what we loved and celebrated about work and other parts of life – but didn’t appreciate enough -  has been challenged by the past 18 months. The way we think about work has been put to the test and was forced to dramatically change. But it's now time to reconsider the norms that were imposed on us by the appropriately stringent requirements of our collective health.

We define the ideal working environment by the experience of our community members. That is paramount because our culture revolves around our community. Thus, when making decisions we always begin by thinking about how to serve our community in the best possible ways. We start there because we started Belong in service of a broken industry, and because we wake up every day determined to fulfill our promise. 

We are in a very delicate stage of our growth: the infancy of our operations, product, and culture. Three interdependent factors will critically determine our destiny as we scale: communication, collaboration, and innovation. So, our work philosophy has evolved in relationship to them.

Our business is fueled by cross-team collaboration. There is simply no substitute for working through challenges and problem solving by being physically together in the same space. Especially at this point in our growth trajectory. 

We all know that technology has progressed quickly, allowing new levels of virtual collaboration between teams.  But there is also no doubt that much is lost when we bounce from Zoom to Zoom,  or respond to flat, emotionless messages in Slack instead of looking our teammates in the eye, reading their body language, and seeing their smiles.  (Or disagreements, that’s important, too.)

As a startup, we need to make decisions faster than big companies. That is an imperative that we must never waiver from.  And due to the physical nature and human aspect of Belong, we have stronger dependencies between ops, experience, growth, and product.

Innovation does not only happen in controlled environments such as structured brainstorming sessions and meetings. Many -if not most - great ideas come from casual conversations at the coffee machine, water cooler, lunch table, or, a favorite of Belongers, going for a walk together around sunny downtown San Mateo.   In a favorite book of ours “Where Good Ideas Come From”,  Steven Johnson writes about the coming together of divergent minds in the 18th century London created waves of innovation.  

Because of the promise we made to our community and ourselves - to create a better, technology-enabled marketplace for homeowners and residents as quickly as possible -  we cannot afford to miss out on t interactions that can significantly accelerate our development. To facilitate this further, we will encourage more walking/coffee meetings. We will be holding all brainstorming, decision, and all-hands meetings in person.

Wars have started because of poor communication. Companies have failed because of it. Marriages have been split asunder.  It is our duty to create the right channels and flow of communication as we scale.  To build on my earlier comment about virtual communication,  it remains difficult to truly connect with the people on the other side of the camera. Virtual communication negates the formal debrief, the informal post-game chat, and the quick temperature-taking that are so critical to the alignment and relationship ecosystem we need at this stage in our growth.

The dream we are working so hard to achieve takes us on weekly roller coasters. What we are doing is hard. It is revolutionary. And it is why we must work, shoulder to shoulder, with our teammates. 

We must be together to feel like we truly Belong, to evoke that sense of togetherness that we want to cultivate among our Community Members.  Our name is more than a word, it describes how we operate internally to change the world around us.  It reminds us why we started our journey in the first place. #​​we_are_team_players

It is our duty, as owners of this company and masters of our own growth, to create and maintain the best conditions for it to flourish.   We have a high bar for excellence, and achieving that requires intense focus on every detail of that environment. #we_have_high_standards.

At the same time, we recognize that there is a lot of value in having the space for undisturbed deep thinking and in retaining commute time. Having a deep focus, time to reflect, and time to take care of personal matters is critical to Belongers’ overall well-being and commitment to our mission; it is valuable for us to create and cultivate that space.

Having one WFH day per week will allow for more purposeful interactions when we are together delivering on our mission. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, we will congregate in our offices to problem solve, create, innovate, and maintain our sense of Belonging. 

Thus, every Belonger whose job requires high collaboration will have the flexibility to work from home on Wednesdays. 

This policy will take effect immediately, and will apply to our teams based in our offices in North America. Our wonderful Pros, of course, are exempt from it. We are working with our excellent overseas teams to determine the best structure for their workdays. 

After much thought, here are specific logistics for each of our six teams:

Most of our team is located in the field, doing wonderful work on behalf of our community members. Clearly, our field team will continue being out there seven days a week, come rain or come shine, serving as the face and heart of Belong. 

Our HQ Ops team, divided between Draper and San Mateo, benefits enormously from being co-located with each other – Scheduling with Inspections, Vendor Relationships with Field Execution – and with other closely cooperating teams: Experience and Growth. 

We need to plan to spend as much time together as possible. During our work from home day, we’ll continue being online, connected, and available to each other and our colleagues, as Operations, still has many reactive components that necessitate being hands-on and available. We’ll also use our work from home day to focus on those vital initiatives that may require extra focus, which isn’t always an option in an office environment. 

Large portions of the design process are inherently collaborative. We listen and collect feedback from other teams cross-functionally. We sit and brainstorm solutions with engineering. We give each other feedback on mockups and feature releases by literally pointing at pixels on the screen. Being in person most of the time is essential, so the plan is to be together 4 days a week, using WFH Wednesdays for those moments when being alone creates windows for a different kind of focus and insight-generation.

The nature of Engineering has already allowed us to establish a remote culture with a team of engineers from San Mateo, Argentina, and soon Mexico. 90% of the engineers are individual contributors. At the same time, they have to work closely with Product, Design, and other stakeholders to build successful products.  With the help of software tools (like JIRA, Balsamiq, Figma, Google Suite) we can achieve the required collaboration remotely. 

Communication within the team is also crucial for our collective. For that reason, we are deliberately clustered around specific locations to foster communication between engineers in the same time zone. The expectation is that engineers will be available from 9 am - 6 pm in their local time zones, and will proactively let the team know of any unavailability during this period. This is essential as all our meetings will be virtual and we strive to minimize the delay in getting responses from each other. 

Engineers from San Mateo should plan to work at least two days from the office to bridge the gap in culture between HQ and other locations. We will revisit this policy once we have established a stronger remote culture and process.

Engineers should get approval from their managers to work outside of the home location.

The Concierge team requires a high level of collaboration between Growth, Operations, and our Front Lines teams to deliver on our team’s mission of building the world’s most loved rental experience through unparalleled service and authentic connection. 

As each member of the team is expected to act like an owner and builder of Belong, we found it to be imperative our team's workflows are designed to foster in-office collaboration across teams. We expect each Concierge to be in the office 4 days a week with the optionality of working from home on Wednesdays. If you choose to WFH that day, your office must be professionally set up for taking Member calls - and that you are completely available. There should be no difference in the quality, responsiveness, and availability that you would have at home vs an in-office setup from the Perspective of the Member. 

Our Coordinators who work in the Philippines have already demonstrated the ability to work from home the past few years. We will continue to operate as a fully remote team for our Philippines team but will review every quarter whether the performance of this setup aligns with our team’s mission and KPIs.

We are investing in a new team of Coordinators who work in the U.S., so we have the Voice of the Community Member in our HQ2 at all times. At this stage, we believe it is vital to have this team operate 100% in the office so we can learn the most from the team’s feedback and so Belong can quickly respond to Member’ needs. We will evaluate this policy quarterly/ at review time as well as the team grows in its maturity. 

As an early-stage startup taking on a 4.5T marketplace, Belong is a pioneer in addressing one of the world’s best-untapped marketplaces. Our ambition is to be the next great real estate tech startup, creating an unparalleled experience for homeowners and residents alike.

As we define our culture, we offer the unique opportunity for each early team member to leave a lasting impression and make valuable contributions in shaping the environment that will be a catalyst for the next great tech unicorn.

With all the buzz around bitcoin and blockchain currencies, many landlords may be wondering "Should I accept rent in bitcoin?" Here's why you should hold off.

Should Landlords Start Accepting Bitcoin?

Should landlords start accepting Bitcoin? It’s a tempting question. Here are some important answers.

Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency. Digital dollars. The blockchain. Even those who are totally immersed in managing their rental properties must be aware that this new digital payment model has taken the world by storm. You can purchase cars with it, and watches with it – but that’s just the start.

Here’s a link to some surprising items you can buy with Bitcoin, which range from furniture to socks to pizza. 

So if you’re a landlord, the thought may logically have crossed your mind: “Should I be accepting bitcoin or other forms of digital currency?” Let’s start this discussion by looking at what some of the big dogs are doing, as a signal.

Last year, Rick Caruso – who is a billionaire real estate investor – announced that his company would “begin accepting bitcoin as rent payment at its residential and retail properties.” Notably, Caruso’s firm had invested some of its own money in bitcoin, and was partnering with Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange co-founded by Tyler Winklevoss. (The Winklevoss twins are huge proponents of bitcoin and have “amassed a $6B fortune.”)

The Caruso announcement got a lot of buzz, but not many giant landlords followed. There’s a reason. Keep in mind, as you consider this step, that bitcoin fluctuates wildly in value, as do other digital currencies like Ethereum and Dogecoin. Last November, a single bitcoin was worth roughly $66,000; as we write this piece it has plunged to $43,000. 

Clearly, as a landlord you can’t afford that kind of volatility. It would be devastating, because it’s likely you work on a thin margin.  Note that in the Caruso announcement, it’s apparent that he already owns a boatload of bitcoin; if you are a landlord in a similar position, then you probably have a separate set of circumstances – and have a different level of sophistication. We are writing this piece for the digital currency landlord.

Let’s say that the rent you collect is $2,500 a month. If you get paid in bitcoin, by the time it converts into dollars it may be worth $2,300 or $2,700. Do you really want to turn your rental property into a casino?

Also, there is some payment infrastructure you’ll need; while Coinbase and other virtual wallets do make it easier to accept digital currency – and to withdraw it – there’s still a learning curve. We do need to point out, though, that the Coinbase website notes that 73 million people and businesses “trust them to buy, sell and manage” crypto. So clearly this is moving from into the mainstream. But it’s mainly as an investment class, not a form of payment.

Another option – and a way to offset the volatility – is to accept rent in the form of stablecoins. Stablecoins are what their name suggests; Coinbase offers them, too, and note that because they are pegged to a “reserve asset” like the U.S. dollar (or even gold) they fluctuate far less and are “A form of digital money that is better suited to everything from day-to-day commerce to making transfers between exchanges.”

There are other pros and cons involved in accepting digital currency as a landlord – this piece lays them out well – and they include the anonymity they provide tenants, which might not be appealing to you.  Plus there are tax implications. As the article from GeekEstateBlog notes, “Paying taxes as a landlord and understanding the related filing obligations is already a stressful process. Throwing cryptocurrencies into the mix won’t make tax season any easier on landlords.”

So net-net, it’s early days. There’s a new app that theoretically enables paying rent with crypto, but the fact that it shows up in a blog called “Futurism” tells you it’s likely not ready for prime time. 

Soon enough, though, it will likely be commonplace; A recent study from Piplsay found that “49% of millennials polled own cryptocurrency compared to 38% of Gen Xers and 13% of Gen Z,” and millennials are more likely to use crypto for payments, with 53% saying they are “very likely” to purchase products or services with crypto. That trend will only get stronger as more and more zoomers enter the marketplace.

As a landlord that owns one property – or just a handful – it’s tempting to consider accepting digital currency; it does help you stand out and brand yourself as innovative, which is no doubt one of the reasons that Rick Caruso and a few other giant landlords have taken the plunge.

But waiting seems to be the prudent option. One thing you don’t have to wait for, though, is  other ways to bring your property into the digital world. That includes choosing a property management company that brings a new level of digital sophistication to what has been an industry lagging in innovation.

Belong has built end-to-end digital experiences that move the requirements of property management onto a digital platform – everything from booking appointments to managing renovations to collecting rent to communication with your 24/7 concierge.

So if you’re looking to signal to your tenants that you are a modern, forward-looking landlord, you don’t need to go all the way to bitcoin. Yet.

For more information about how to bring your property into the digital age, make an appointment with Belong here.

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).

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