Realtor · Brentwood, CA · Member since 2018 · 7 posts · 4 votes
My husband and I own 5 doors in TN and they are all managed by the same company. We recently ventured into VA and are in process of purchasing 2 more doors. They will be managed together with a property manager there. I am looking for a user-friendly platform to keep track of them all in one place. Any recommendations? I recently signed up for the trial on Landlord Studio, anyone use this? Is Google sheets enough since I do not manage them myself?
@Mike McCarthy. What he said. If you’re paying a PM it’s their job to do everything. If you want some control, and I mean any control, just download tenant cloud and ditch the PM. Calling a plumber every 3 months isn’t hard work.
What do you mean by "keep track of them?" I'm guessing you mean how to track the finances, correct?
If thats the case, I use Quickbooks however that may be overkill for most people. There are plenty of free/cheap accounting software that would work great. Wave and Cloudbooks are both great options. When looking at software, just make sure there is a way to allocate expenses/income to specific properties. It may sound different for each software (locations, jobs, items, etc). Hope that helps some at least!
@Nicole Hunti would think your PM should be managing just about everything for you, including quarterly/yearly P&L statements. I’d probably plug those into a Google Sheet to track them together... but that’s about it.
What isn’t your PM providing you that you might need?
@Mike McCarthy. What he said. If you’re paying a PM it’s their job to do everything. If you want some control, and I mean any control, just download tenant cloud and ditch the PM. Calling a plumber every 3 months isn’t hard work.
@Nicole Hunt Hi Nicole, depending on what you want to track you may want to look at Stessa. But I agree with other comments, I imagine a good PM can give you all the financials and records you need.
Your PM should be keeping track of each rental separately. It is then up to you to keep track of the other expenses (taxes, utilities, mortgage). For the expenses you have, either keep track in a notebook or a simple spreadsheet.
Thank you for all your responses. My PM's do track in each state. I was looking for something to merge them together for myself. I started using Google Sheets and it is doing what I need for now. I will be looking into Cloudbooks as well.