Property Management Software: A Guide to choose the best one 

What do Property Management Software do? 

Property management software are solutions that help landowners and property managers to carry out real-estate operations- whether commercial or residential, effectively covering all aspects from leasing to maintenance to finance. Some common functions expected of Property management software are: 

1. Automated administration of both commercial and residential property including lease administration, improving portfolio performance, residents engagement etc.
2. They also let you access your property data from anywhere anytime. 
3. Accounting workflow can be streamlined to improve budgeting and forecasting
4. They are equipped with powerful reporting and data visualization tools that lets you analyze trends and make informed decisions. 

Points to remember while choosing a Property management software 

If you are looking for a suitable software to automate all your activities related to property management, it is important to consider the following factors before making a choice: 

1.  Business needs: It is very much necessary to consider what you need the software to do for you such as lease management, double-entry accounting, automated billing, tenant communications, Reporting etc. and select a   software that suits best. 
2.  Scalability: You must assess the functionality of your current property management system and analyze if the software makes migration easy and if it can grow with the growth of your business. 
3.  Ease-of-use: Next point to consider for your research is if the software can be easily used by you and your staff eliminating duplication of work and enabling maximum automation without any prior knowledge of coding.
4.  Features: You must also compare the various functionalities and features offered by various property management software and choose the one that provides you maximum solutions. 
5.  Pricing: The software expenses must be feasible and within our budget 

Our recommendations: 

To make your job easier we weigh different property management software against the above factors and recommend for you the best among the lot below: 

1. TurboTenant

TurboTenant is a landlord and tenant software built by a community of 300,000+ million landlords and 6+ million renters for online vacancy marketing, tenant screening, online rent payments and rental applications. It was founded in 2015 with its Headquarters at Fort Collins, Colorado. 

Key Features:

• Rental advertising with professional listing page, lead tracking, automatic Pre-screening etc. 
• Online Application with customized questions and easily shareable links to application forms where the applicants can also upload their documents. TurboTenant also has a unique feature of automatically contacting the past landlords for references. 
• Tenant screening partnered by TransUnion that screens the applicants’ credit scores, outstanding loans, criminal records etc. 
• Rental Management and documents provide state-specific leases with electronic signatures which can be accessed from anywhere or any device. 
• Rent Payments through secure gateways such as Stripe and Plaid. TurboTenants also send automatic reminders and receipts when a tenant makes a payment. 

TurboTenant offers free service to the Landlords except for certain optional services like Electronic signatures ($9), Lease agreement ($29), Forms pack with 99 forms ($99) etc. Renters are required to pay an Application and screening fee of $45 and an optional purchase of insurance starting at $8/month. 

2. Buildium

Buildium is a cloud-based property management software founded in 2004 and owned by Real page with its Headquarters in New England. Today it manages more than 1 million properties across 46 countries worldwide. It's a simple, unified and scalable platform that can cater to the needs of homeowners, professional property management companies, self-managed condos etc. 

Key Features:

• Property accounting and Online Payments to accept online rent payments, manage bank accounts and create reports securely. 
• Document storage stores all property related documents on the cloud so that you can access them anywhere anytime. 
• Property inspections to inspect all your units from any mobile device.
• Analytics and Insights that updates you with the current trends and leads you to data-driven decisions to grow your business. 
• Rental listings, applications and Tenant screening allow ease to find and screen the right tenant by collecting all information upfront. 
• Free Professional website hosted by Buildium to boost your brands and increase visibility of your listings. 
• eLease feature makes it possible to carry out all leasing features online and collects applicant's eSignature from anywhere. 

Pricing: 

Buildium offers a choice of three pricing plans as follows, all of which come with a free website and basic features like accounting, maintenance, tasks, violations etc. 

Essential ($50/month): basic screening, $5 per eLease $99/bank account and ticket support 

Growth ($160/month): Basic and Premium screening, unlimited leases, 5 free bank accounts and $99/bank account, Performance analytics and insights, ticket support and Live chat. 

Premium ($460/month) all features of Growth plan with open API, Buildium Rewards and Priority support.

3. TenantCloud

TenantCloud is a Property management company founded in 2014 listed in the Top 10k US Real estate companies. 

Key Features:

• Online payment 
• Tenant screening
• Automatic Listing Syndication to post your vacant listings to numerous platforms like Apartments.com, Facebook. Zillow group etc., with just a click. 
•  Lead Tracking 
•  Accounting 
•  Reports 
•  Maintenance Tracking 
•  Online Leases
•  Landlord forms 

Pricing: 

There are four plans offered called Free, Starter ($12/month), Growth ($40/month) and Business (Custom Pricing) 

The Free plan has all basic functionalities like Listings, scheduling, Applicants screening etc. The Starter pack has additional features of Premium leads, leases, tax reports, Vendor network and management. Growth plan provides Owner portal and Distribution tool in addition to all features of Starter plan. Business plans support Teams, Tasks and customization along with all above features.

Conclusion: 

Even though the initial costs and annual prices might seem quite high, the property management software makes your work easy by accurate property document management, Tenant management, maintenance, reporting etc. and thus saves a lot of time and efforts working wonders for the growth of your company. Hope our recommendations help you to compare the best among the lot and aid your decision.