Property management classes worth it?

[Allison Snyder]

My husband and I have 20 doors so far which is great but I have no background what so ever on how to do bookkeeping, finances, excel, etc. Is it worth it to take some property management classes ? We’ve obviously learned from experience but having three little kids I need to learn how to have some systems in place to make my life easier and to be better organized in the office. I’ve looked at getting a software for managing our properties but don’t feel like it’s worth money when I am home and can do it myself at the moment. Thanks!

[Ben Day]

@Allison Snyder

Hey Allison! Do you want to be in charge of those tasks long term? If you want to keep your team really small, then it’s probably worth it to take some classes. If you really, really do not want to do bookkeeping it might make more sense to start shopping for a bookkeeper that understands real estate.

Best case scenario, it may be worth it to you to have a system set up just for operations so you can add more units first. Property specific software like TenantCloud or Cozy would help with rent collection. From there, you could make payments to owners using Melio or Bill.com.

If you pick tools that “play well with others” and connect to each other, you could have a system that you and your team uses that is separate from your accounting system. This way, you don’t need to learn accounting and your bookkeeper doesn’t have to get involved in more than they need.

You could go for something like Buildium if you really want to teach yourself a doozy of a software that “does it all”. Buildium does not play well with others though :)