What happened to cozy?

Question

I'm making the transition to pm software and wanted to check out cozy, but it seems to be non existent now. Does anyone know what happened to it?

Alex Pelletier · Answer

Cozy is now apartments.com, but there are plenty of options (paid and free) that you can explore. There's Avail, Innago, Tenantcloud, Stessa, Azibo, Rentredi, and more all with easy-to-use platforms that are worth your time and money to use.

We at Azibo are excited to be one of the only offerings that don't charge for ACH rent collection and have a strong rental accounting offering to provide you with reports.

Nathan said it best: every platform has strengths and weaknesses, and the best way to make the decision is to try multiple options. Best of luck!

Drew Sygit · Answer

Upgrade to Pro membership and you get to use RentRedi for free

Ron H. · Answer

Purchased by apartments.com

Nathan Miller · Answer

@Conrad Cortes Before you make any firm decisions I would recommend trying out the free trials of any software you are considering because they all have different workflows and you should use the one that feels best to your organization, and most importantly test their customer service.  Many of these software have outsourced their support so lots of people complaining about the quality of support.

Conrad Cortes · Answer

@Nathan Gesner thanks for the info. Im in the 5-10 category now and I want to start taking on customers as a pm as soon as legally possible in my area. So I’m going to set something up with my own places now so I can get used to a program. I’m leaning towards buildium but I’m going to also check out door loop also.

Tommy Parker · Answer

As others have said, Cozy was purchased by Apartments.com. In terms of pm software I use Innago. It's been nothing but helpful. There are lots of options on the market. I would choose the one that makes the most sense for you. You could make a pro's and con's list of what you like about each software. I choose Innago bc it was free for me and the features it has. I hope this helps!

Conrad Cortes · Answer

@Ron H. Interesting! Thanks!

Conrad Cortes · Answer

@Drew Sygit didn’t know that! Will look into it!

Nathan Gesner · Answer

They were purchased by apartments.com about two years ago?

Software is a common question on BiggerPockets. Here are some things to consider:

• Most investors don't need software until they have 5-10 rentals. All you need is a single place to track tenant information, payment history, maintenance, and a few other things. You can easily do this on a spreadsheet and it will take less time to track than it would to find and learn a new software. If the software is not simplifying your life or making you more accurate, you shouldn't use it.
• Software does have extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports. But do you really need that for your one rental?
• There's no perfect software out there. Every system you try will have flaws or you'll salivate over a feature that shows up in other software.

Some common names you'll see thrown around a lot: Stessa, Apartments.com, RentRedi, TenantCloud, Innago, RentManager, Avail, Rentec Direct, Doorloop, etc.

I recommend you search for each of those apps online and see what they offer, how much they charge, etc. Make a simple spreadsheet or written list with the features of each and see which ones appeal to you most. Try to narrow it down to your top 3-4. Once you have a short list, get an account with each one and run them through the wringer to see how they really function. Do one task at a time in each app so you can compare apples to apples.

• Load a property with pictures and details.
• Market that property.
• See what your marketing looks like from the public's perspective.
• Submit a fake application to see how easy the process is.
• Run a credit/screening report on yourself.
• Enter a maintenance request, assign a vendor, attach a fake invoice.
• Enter charges to the tenant's ledger.
• Enter recurring charges and automatic late fees.
• Sign documents electronically.
• Run owner reports.

After testing a few apps, one of them should stand out for you. Choose that one and use it. No system is perfect, so don't waste your time chasing after the next shiny object. You should only have to change when your current software has a flaw or lacking feature that is causing you to spend too much work on a work-around. Then you can consider researching and finding something that meets your needs better.

What happened to cozy?

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