What is the best software for landlords managing 125 units?

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  • Christopher Leon
    Realtor · Schaumburg, IL · Member since 2011 · 289 posts · 118 votes
    8y
    @Scott Neudecker This depends on what features your looking for. Myself, personally, I did not want a cloud based program because they carry a monthly expense. I chose Tenant File which you can purchase for a fixed cost. The program is robust and has everything you would need as far as printing checks, reports, P&L, balance sheets, etc. This is truly the only program I have ever tried and found it highly recommended by some colleagues. Much older kind of program FYI. Like it looks like something from Windows 95 but works great - don’t mistake it. I have heard of Buildium, Cozy, and AppFolio. I have no experience with them but did review heavily before committing to TF. Once again, biggest drawback on the latter program is they are cloud based and carry a monthly fee that I just didn’t want.
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  • Nathan GesnerBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes
    8y

    This is a common question but there's no perfect answer. My recommendation is for you to sit down with pen and paper, or a spreadsheet, and analyze every task you do in a given month. Then determine how much time you spend on each task in one month.

    For example, I started out using Microsoft Money 2004. When I received rent, I had to receive it in the tenant's ledger then pay it out to the owner. Then I went to the owner's ledger to receive it and pay it out. Receiving rent, paying a vendor, paying the owner...it all required duplicate steps and was very time-consuming. I had to use a different system to track contact information for owners, tenants, and vendors. And work orders were tracked on a printed spreadsheet. It was very inefficient and those were my three largest issues. I looked for a software that was capable of handling these three things without a steep learning curve. I tested the top five software programs and settled on Buildium which was perfect for my needs and great for my budget.

    Two years later, things were flowing smoothly but I had identified a couple shortfalls with Buildium that were requiring too much time or for me to use different software. After identifying the specific issues, I researched software and found something that solved my problem again.

    I think it's important to know your problems and then find software to solve them. Asking for my opinion may help a little but I can't possibly answer your question without knowing exactly what problems you face.

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