Best softwares? Trying to determine benefits and limitations

[Devin LeBlanc]

What softwares do you use for managing rentals, and what are the pros/cons of different ones?

[James Jones]

Depends a lot on your portfolio size, but here's what I've seen:

Avail and TurboTenant are solid if you're small. Free or cheap, handle listings, applications, screening, and rent collection. Limitation is they get clunky once you're past a handful of units and the accounting side is thin.

Buildium and AppFolio are the step up. More robust accounting, maintenance tracking, owner portals if you manage for others. AppFolio has a unit minimum and isn't cheap, so it really only makes sense at scale. Buildium is the middle ground.

DoorLoop has been getting good buzz lately and tends to undercut the bigger guys on price. Worth a look.

Honestly the biggest thing is just picking one and actually using it consistently. A lot of people bounce between tools and never get the full benefit. What's your unit count? That'll narrow it down fast.