Real life experience of transition from one property management software to another

Real life experience of transition from one property management software to another

Matt WaggonerPro Member
Member since 2022 · 25 posts · 11 votes

Hi BP Fam, 

I wanted to take some time to talk about our experience moving property management software platforms. 

We have used Doorloop since we started in real estate back in 2023. We are still babies on some level, but we have grown from 4 units to 19 now. We are still very small, but we manage all of our own rentals. We do long term buy and hold so I really don't have much to say for those doing mid term or STR.

Overall, Doorloop was adequate. They added functionality throughout our time with them. This came at a cost as well. There was AI integration, API access and even website building/design for those that didn't have a website. There were a number of reasons that we moved on from Doorloop. I was paying for an elevated level, I believe we were mid tier, but at this level we were still paying 200 per month for the services. The listing for available rentals was easy, but I will say that our current tenants were found by listing with Avail for free. The accounting was a nightmare for us, but in transparency we use quickbooks for our bookkeeping. The accounting function within doorloop was not great. We have our own LLC and a partnership on a property and this was not easy to organize and track in doorloop. Based on the price and what we were using, we started looking elsewhere.

We looked at Rentvine, TenantCloud, Turbotenant, and Baselane. Baselane and Rentvine seemed to have the best accounting integration in their platform, but Baselane lacked the tenant maintenance and rentvine was way too expensive for the size of our operation. Our experience with TenantCloud was poor from the beginning, and seemed overpriced for what we were getting. Doorloop customer service for the level we were paying for was poor as well, we often had to wait for over an hour for responses, then if we didn't respond right away after waiting for so long online, we would be shoved back into a queue. Based on that and the initial poor experience with the customer service of tenantcloud, that was an immediate 'no'. 

We chose Turbotenant. Currently we have units that are coming available so we are in the midst of trying to fill the units and we are still paying for Doorloop as we transition to Turbotenant. A couple things I will say right off. Turbotenant is way cheaper. We pay only 400 for the year.  The platform looks similar to Doorloop. The application process is less cumbersome, but it also seems less tailored, which I struggle with. There is a flat $45 fee for applicants, but I don't like this because we had a $35 fee that compensates us for our time for admin and research into applicants backgrounds, phone calls, verification, etc. You can't recoup any of that if there are applicants that you end up having to turn away and that is lost time, lost money. This may not be important to some, for me, it matters, but I balance that at the amount of money I am saving.  They have a prescreener function and the listing page is easy and though we have used Avail again for additional advertisement, the majority of our leads come in through the listing through turbotenant. There is a messenger function within the platform which is helpful and a calender scheduler for viewings, none of these are available in doorloop, at least not that I had seen. 

The accounting aspect isn't that great, but payment seems to be straight forward. We will still be using QBO for our bookkeeping, though I had seen last year turbotenant had purchased Azibo, which has been referenced as a financial software, I am wondering if there will be improvements and integrations to their platform. 

We are slowly adding the usage of a couple units with Turbotenant and working out the kinks before we roll this out to the rest of our tenants. We feel this will be a better platform for our tenants and though I wish there was a little more AI integration and API access to allow for use of maintenance agents that I have built, the fact that we are saving over 1800 dollars per year for the same level of customer service and same level of PM software, I have to say that though there may be areas where doorloop is better, overall, this isn't balanced by the amount of money we are gaining by dropping their service. 

I will say the trend we have seen is that these platforms are increasingly using AI for their Landlord level customer service, and this is of course is not a surprise as this is happening across all spectrums. That said, our experience thusfar, that although most of the customer service with turbotenant has been way more responsive and the ability to get a human, even if it is on the other end of a keyboard, is way better. 

I hope this helps and if someone has more questions, I will do what I can to help. 

Matt and Erin 

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JD MartinBusiness Member
Moderator
Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 17k+ votes
4mo

We use TurboTenant as well. I put up with them more than like them. The software does most things adequately but nothing spectacularly for sure. I hate the payment dashboard, which doesn't show any scheduled payments for the next month until the system is in "next month" mode, so you have to manually keep up with who's got everything on autopay and who is just going in the day before/day of and manually scheduling payment. Any more it usually takes them a couple of days to respond to anything. And most maddeningly, the system has no way of carrying a balance on a tenant's account if they overpay, which makes zero sense to me. Even my free Apartments portal knew if a tenant paid $10 too much; now we have to track it manually (this refers to manual payments for our "pay at the bank" customers). 

Have looked at others but I don't think by and large they're a ton better. In my opinion there's a whole in the software universe for the 20-50 unit owners, who can't justify much more expensive systems because the volume is not there. 

Skyline Properties
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  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    4mo

    We use TurboTenant as well. I put up with them more than like them. The software does most things adequately but nothing spectacularly for sure. I hate the payment dashboard, which doesn't show any scheduled payments for the next month until the system is in "next month" mode, so you have to manually keep up with who's got everything on autopay and who is just going in the day before/day of and manually scheduling payment. Any more it usually takes them a couple of days to respond to anything. And most maddeningly, the system has no way of carrying a balance on a tenant's account if they overpay, which makes zero sense to me. Even my free Apartments portal knew if a tenant paid $10 too much; now we have to track it manually (this refers to manual payments for our "pay at the bank" customers). 

    Have looked at others but I don't think by and large they're a ton better. In my opinion there's a whole in the software universe for the 20-50 unit owners, who can't justify much more expensive systems because the volume is not there. 

    Skyline Properties
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  • Rachid AbadliBusiness Member
    Investor · Sacramento, CA · Member since 2024 · 129 posts · 37 votes
    4mo

    Appreciate you posting this — real transition experience is way more useful than comparison articles written by people who haven't actually migrated a portfolio.

    The QuickBooks sync issue you hit with DoorLoop is the one that burns the most people. You spend $200/month expecting the accounting to just work, and then you're still manually reconciling because the integration only pushes half the data. At that point you're paying for two systems that don't talk to each other.

    JD's point about the 20–50 unit gap is real. The free platforms (TurboTenant, Avail) are built for the 1–5 unit owner and start creaking once you need actual work order management, lease tracking across multiple properties, and real accounting. The enterprise platforms (AppFolio, Buildium) price you out and assume you have staff. There's genuinely not much in between.

    A few things I'd watch for with TurboTenant at 19 units:

    • Tenant account balances — JD flagged this. If a tenant overpays or has a credit, can you carry it forward? At 19 units, this comes up more than you'd think.
    • Maintenance beyond basic — submitting a request is easy. Tracking vendor assignment, approval, completion, and cost per unit over time is where most free platforms fall short.
    • State-specific compliance — if any of your units are in rent-controlled jurisdictions, does the platform help you track caps, required notices, and deadlines? Or is that still on you?

    How's the actual migration going? Did you move lease documents and tenant history over, or are you starting fresh in TurboTenant?

    LeaseBase.ai
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    • Matt WaggonerPro Member
      OP
      Member since 2022 · 25 posts · 11 votes
      2mo
      Quote from @Rachid Abadli:

      Appreciate you posting this — real transition experience is way more useful than comparison articles written by people who haven't actually migrated a portfolio.

      The QuickBooks sync issue you hit with DoorLoop is the one that burns the most people. You spend $200/month expecting the accounting to just work, and then you're still manually reconciling because the integration only pushes half the data. At that point you're paying for two systems that don't talk to each other.

      JD's point about the 20–50 unit gap is real. The free platforms (TurboTenant, Avail) are built for the 1–5 unit owner and start creaking once you need actual work order management, lease tracking across multiple properties, and real accounting. The enterprise platforms (AppFolio, Buildium) price you out and assume you have staff. There's genuinely not much in between.

      A few things I'd watch for with TurboTenant at 19 units:

      • Tenant account balances — JD flagged this. If a tenant overpays or has a credit, can you carry it forward? At 19 units, this comes up more than you'd think.
      • Maintenance beyond basic — submitting a request is easy. Tracking vendor assignment, approval, completion, and cost per unit over time is where most free platforms fall short.
      • State-specific compliance — if any of your units are in rent-controlled jurisdictions, does the platform help you track caps, required notices, and deadlines? Or is that still on you?

      How's the actual migration going? Did you move lease documents and tenant history over, or are you starting fresh in TurboTenant?


      Thanks for all the feedback and I realized I haven't updated in a bit. We are doing a phased roll out of turbotenant. As leases are up, we renew them under turbotenant so as not to confuse anything. I still don't think that I can get rid of QBO at this point. 

      I will definitely keep an eye out on Tenant Account Balances as JD noted and you reaffirmed. 

      Maintenance has been mostly a non-issue so far. Its fairly straight forward. Then again our N=3. There is a tenant sided AI agent, but its not robust at all for triage of issues or any sort of expanded troubleshooting. This is where I have been trying to build something more robust with n8n to at least provide some basic troubleshooting, but without API access, there is no way to keep the documentation in the turbotenant platform. 

      Placing tenants has been straightforward. Though a few things stand out. There is no way to charge additional for applications. This is frustrating. We did two methods with two units that were recently available. method 1 was exclusively using the Turbotenant application, screening, listing process, and tenant lead communication. This included the ability for leads to schedule showings through turbotenant. My wife handles most of this, she said she liked the platform for communication with tenants through the app. The second method was more automated and was a workflow that I developed with n8n, gmail, calendly, and airtable. Its more sophisticated, but allowed for less interaction on our part, at least initially. Though there were some hiccups, this workflow was triggered by using the gmail notification from turbotenant that someone was interested. This lead to collecting data from that email, updating our airtable CRM, and sending an email that invited people to set a calendly appt based on our availability already set in our google calendar. My perspective is that there was less direct contact with the leads, until the time when we met them for the showings. I felt like this resulted in her spending less time on remedial admin tasks that opened her up to handle other aspects. That said, having all those platforms operating for that workflow may not be the most cost effective. 

      We don't operate in rent controlled areas, I try to avoid investing in those areas as they can be a little more specialized and I would likely use a third party PM service for that. 


      Our plan is to have everyone over to the turbotenant platform by December. That will be the real test. I still don't feel confident in the accounting. Buildium, Rentvine, Appfolio are all way too costly, though they do offer some of the functionality that I am looking for. I will say turbotenant thusfar from a customer service perspective is lightyears ahead of doorloop. Doorloop was absolutely awful. Our tenants have had numerous billing issues and the support for them and for us has been abysmal with doorloop. The price and the service thus far has been good. There is a lot of improvement that turbotenant could make, but I am not sure that is their business model. I get the feeling they really just want to be for the small real estate investor with that 1-10 range. 

      Will definitely plan to post again after December. 

      Stay Tuned. 

  • Specialist · Goa, India · Member since 2026 · 175 posts · 36 votes
    3mo

    Really appreciate the real transition write-up — way more useful than the usual comparison posts.

    One line stood out: you mentioned wanting more API access for the maintenance agents you've already built. That's actually the workaround a lot of owners in the 20-50 unit range end up using — instead of waiting for the PM platform itself to support deeper AI/API functionality, connecting Turbotenant (or whatever platform) to something like n8n or Make.com as a middle layer. It lets you keep the affordable platform for tenant-facing stuff while building the automation/reporting layer on top, without paying enterprise pricing for features you'd only partially use anyway.

    Curious what the maintenance agents you built are actually doing right now — routing requests, logging status, something else? That's usually the piece that's easiest to bridge across platforms without a full migration.

    — Andrea

    • Matt WaggonerPro Member
      OP
      Member since 2022 · 25 posts · 11 votes
      2mo
      Quote from @Andrea Fernandes:

      Really appreciate the real transition write-up — way more useful than the usual comparison posts.

      One line stood out: you mentioned wanting more API access for the maintenance agents you've already built. That's actually the workaround a lot of owners in the 20-50 unit range end up using — instead of waiting for the PM platform itself to support deeper AI/API functionality, connecting Turbotenant (or whatever platform) to something like n8n or Make.com as a middle layer. It lets you keep the affordable platform for tenant-facing stuff while building the automation/reporting layer on top, without paying enterprise pricing for features you'd only partially use anyway.

      Curious what the maintenance agents you built are actually doing right now — routing requests, logging status, something else? That's usually the piece that's easiest to bridge across platforms without a full migration.

      — Andrea

      Hi Andrea, 
      The maintenance agent is a struggle, I mentioned this in a previous thread, i am trying to build something out, but the interface within turbotenant is the rate limiting step. We want to keep all the communciation in one place preferably in the PM software. I enjoy building stuff like this in n8n, but there is a difference between hobby and actual live scalable platform. 
      Would love to hear your experiences with building agents like this out more. 

      Matt
  • Ed BaronePro Member
    Saratoga Springs, NY · Member since 2018 · 109 posts · 58 votes
    3mo

    Matt,

    Thanks for taking the time to share such a detailed experience. It’s helpful, especially for new comers to BP, hearing from landlords who are actually managing their own properties, have scaled, and have gone through the process of comparing platforms and migrating.

    I think JD makes a good point as well. There’s a real need for software that works for landlords as they grow without becoming overly complicated or expensive.

    In full transparency, I’m a co-founder of RentRedi, so I obviously have a perspective here. But I don't think you need to pay alot to get a platform that can grow with you.  You just need a company with the right engineering team and a laser focus on customer needs. I know that sounds cliche, but it does exist.  If you’re a BiggerPockets Pro member, RentRedi is already included with your membership as well.

    Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando!  

    Ed

    • Matt WaggonerPro Member
      OP
      Member since 2022 · 25 posts · 11 votes
      2mo
      Quote from @Ed Barone:

      Matt,

      Thanks for taking the time to share such a detailed experience. It’s helpful, especially for new comers to BP, hearing from landlords who are actually managing their own properties, have scaled, and have gone through the process of comparing platforms and migrating.

      I think JD makes a good point as well. There’s a real need for software that works for landlords as they grow without becoming overly complicated or expensive.

      In full transparency, I’m a co-founder of RentRedi, so I obviously have a perspective here. But I don't think you need to pay alot to get a platform that can grow with you.  You just need a company with the right engineering team and a laser focus on customer needs. I know that sounds cliche, but it does exist.  If you’re a BiggerPockets Pro member, RentRedi is already included with your membership as well.

      Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando!  

      Ed


       Ed, 

      Thanks for reaching out. I tried to work with Rentredi, we were very interested, but your staff was not very helpful or engaging. I have some email threads I would be willing to share offline, but I decided with turbotenant because of cost, functionality, and customer service. Customer service was at the top of the list for us. Even with using a chatbot which everyone does, turbotenant has been way more receptive and we can often get a human that can help us further much faster than we expereienced with Doorloop. The rentredi team was unimpressive to my wife and I. Being that we are a lean team and that I have a full time job on top of this, when we need help, we need to have responsiveness, and based on our exchange in just trying to gain more knowledge about rentredi, we had seen some concerning service related issues.  I will be at BPCON along with my wife, would be willing to talk more. 

    • Matt WaggonerPro Member
      OP
      Member since 2022 · 25 posts · 11 votes
      2mo
      Quote from @Matt Waggoner:
      Quote from @Ed Barone:

      Matt,

      Thanks for taking the time to share such a detailed experience. It’s helpful, especially for new comers to BP, hearing from landlords who are actually managing their own properties, have scaled, and have gone through the process of comparing platforms and migrating.

      I think JD makes a good point as well. There’s a real need for software that works for landlords as they grow without becoming overly complicated or expensive.

      In full transparency, I’m a co-founder of RentRedi, so I obviously have a perspective here. But I don't think you need to pay alot to get a platform that can grow with you.  You just need a company with the right engineering team and a laser focus on customer needs. I know that sounds cliche, but it does exist.  If you’re a BiggerPockets Pro member, RentRedi is already included with your membership as well.

      Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando!  

      Ed


       Ed, 

      Thanks for reaching out. I tried to work with Rentredi, we were very interested, but your staff was not very helpful or engaging. I have some email threads I would be willing to share offline, but I decided with turbotenant because of cost, functionality, and customer service. Customer service was at the top of the list for us. Even with using a chatbot which everyone does, turbotenant has been way more receptive and we can often get a human that can help us further much faster than we expereienced with Doorloop. The rentredi team was unimpressive to my wife and I. Being that we are a lean team and that I have a full time job on top of this, when we need help, we need to have responsiveness, and based on our exchange in just trying to gain more knowledge about rentredi, we had seen some concerning service related issues.  I will be at BPCON along with my wife, would be willing to talk more. 


       I want to clear something up. I learned a lesson today, make sure your facts are in order before posting, one needs to be clear and remember who they are talking about when rendering critical information. I had a pretty awful experience with tenantcloud and mixed up my poor experience with rentredi. I never spoke with rentredi, and Unfortunately I made a terrible error blaming Ed's Company RentRedi for an experience that was not of his or his company's doing. I take complete responsibility. I have no experience with Rentredi, and Retract my statement completely regarding the poor responsiveness. 

      That experience I had was with TenantCloud, Not Rentredi. My sincerest apologies to Ed Barone. I will make sure to find you at BPCON and say this to you personally as well. 

  • Ed BaronePro Member
    Saratoga Springs, NY · Member since 2018 · 109 posts · 58 votes
    2mo

    Matt,

    I am so sorry to hear that you did not get first rate service.  I would love to jump on a call and include Danny, our Head of Sales and support.  I will also dig in on my end to learn more about your experience.  Please look for a DM from me to set up some time to speak.

    Thanks for sharing and for giving us the chance to serve you. 
    Ed


  • Ed BaronePro Member
    Saratoga Springs, NY · Member since 2018 · 109 posts · 58 votes
    2mo

    Matt 

    Thanks for clearing that up.  Looking forward to meeting you at BPCON

    Best regards

    Ed

  • Real Estate Agent · Memphis · Member since 2026 · 608 posts · 354 votes
    2mo

    The cost difference is pretty hard to ignore when you're still at 19 units, especially if you weren't getting much value out of the features you were paying extra for. I also think you're doing the right thing by keeping QBO as the accounting source instead of forcing everything into the PM platform just because the feature exists. Curious how the maintenance side of TurboTenant holds up once you've moved all 19 units over—that's usually where I start noticing the difference between platforms as the portfolio grows.

  • Member since 2026 · 5 posts · 0 votes
    1mo

    Matt, a money question if that is all right. When you were paying the $200 a month, how much of that felt like it was for the accounting piece versus listings and tenant tools? And now on TurboTenant plus QuickBooks: if clean per-property entries from your bank and manager statements arrived in QuickBooks each month, already checked against the statement balance, is that worth a monthly fee at 19 units, or not? I am weighing whether to offer it. A no is a useful answer.

  • Coral Springs, FL · Member since 2018 · 496 posts · 117 votes
    1mo

    that 20-50 unit gap jd mentioned is so real. i've been looking at this same problem and honestly every platform seems to fall into one of two buckets - cheap but basic, or expensive but you're paying for features designed for companies with actual staff. there's almost nothing in the middle.

    the n8n workaround you built is honestly the move most people in your range should be doing. the pm platforms at that price point just don't have the api access to let you plug in anything custom, so people end up stuck doing things manually when a simple workflow would handle it. you basically built your own middle layer for free.

    phased rollout by lease renewal is the right call too. i've seen people try to migrate everything at once and it's a disaster - tenants get confused, payments get missed, and you're spending weeks fixing stuff that wasn't actually broken. slow and steady works way better.

    keeping qbo for the real accounting while using turbotenant for tenant-facing stuff is probably the most practical setup at your size. the pm platforms keep promising accounting that "just works" but it never actually does once you have more than a handful of units or any kind of partnership structure.

  • Simon W.Business Member
    Real Estate Consultant · Lehigh Valley PA & New York City · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 689 votes
    1mo

    software migration is really an accounting project with an operations wrapper.

    i’d set a hard cutover date and build a migration checklist:

    - export tenants, leases, deposits, credits, open work orders, and vendor records

    - save the old reports and keep read-only access

    - map the old chart of accounts to the new one

    - document opening bank, receivable, payable, deposit, and owner balances

    - reconcile the final old-system statement to the bank

    - test one complete month in the new system before rolling everyone over

    - compare rent, fees, repairs, and cash totals between systems

    don’t migrate only the pretty operational data and leave the accounting history behind. that creates a gap exactly when somebody needs to explain a balance.

    i’d also keep the general ledger separate from the PM platform if the new system’s accounting is weak. cheaper software can still work, but only if the monthly exports and reconciliations are disciplined.

    Accounting Properties LLC
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