Under contract on bigger purchase - what are you using for property management suite?

Question

Short & sweet:

Under contract on new 33 unit building.

Currently my portfolio is all smaller buildings (2-4 unit properties).

Today I use Apartments.com for rent collection, google voice for tenant comms (&email), and stessa for book keeping.

This would be fine I am sure to onboard the extra units but at this point hoping to possibly switch to one platform to handle it all? I know the common big players, doorloop, buildium, appfolio, etc. but they are too expensive for what else is out there. I am sure there is a good software suite sub $1k/yr that would do the trick... just curious what others are using.

Starting to dig into Tenant cloud, baselane, turbo tenant, etc.

Main things that come to mind that I really want are:
- automated rent collection (free ach, a fee is a scam)
- maintenance requests in tenant portal
- book keeping (hopefully real estate specific like stessa style)
- easy onboarding & tenant management

Appreciate any conversation in advance -

Matt Schafer · Answer

@Cj Underwood I know $5 per unit is the standard price (I just have SFH). For larger commercial properties the pricing model is different because of scale, I just don't know how exactly that works. Might be worth contacting them to see what they could do for you, they've been great to work with and provide good support so I'm guessing you'd be able to discuss options with someone if you wanted.

Cj Underwood · Answer

I am leaning towards tenant cloud? The ACH fee for renters just throws me off, I would be annoyed as a renter that I have to pay a fee to pay rent. ( I understand a card fee if they choose to do that way ).

Cj Underwood · Answer

Appreciate the suggestion! Same price as Buildium, Doorloop, etc at ~$2000/year for 33 units so a little more expensive than I would like. I think I am going to go with Rentec Direct after doing more research over the last few weeks

Drew Sygit · Answer

@Cj Underwood we actually absorb the ACH fee for tenants because it's still CHEAPER than having to process paper checks or even direct deposits into our bank account.

So, see if Tenant Cloud, or any software you pick, allows landlord to pay the ACH fee.

Here are other options:

Doorloop, Hemlane, Innago, RentRedi, Stessa, Avail, TurboTenant, Buildium.

FYI - how did you calculate Buildium will cost you more than $1k annually?

Cj Underwood · Answer

Right from their pricing page, if I were to onboard 33 units it would be $1,977/yr