Rental Property Management Software

[Craig T.]

I'm deciding between using Cozy or TenantCloud as free software to manage my duplex.  Has anybody had experience with either or recommend another free or low cost software?  Thanks!

[Ray Lai]

Hi Craig,

I haven't used either because I use a PM for my properties, but I've taken notes from either software discussion threads:

Problem with Cozy:

Alex Reiz said:

We have been using Cozy for our rental properties in regards to rent collection. Initially, their system was great and would not allow a Tenant to make partial payments; it would only allow a Tenant to pay all or none of the Rent, which was great and was one of the reasons we started using their service. However recently they have changed their system which now allows Tenants to make partial payments, which we do not like at all. There is no option on the receiving side in order to only allow only full payments, we find this to be a waiting nightmare if an eviction ever came up. We are especially unhappy with the service now, considering that was one of their highly touted features when they first started offering it.

Does anyone know of any other online payment service which only allows for full payments or at least allows the Landlord to chose between full and partial payments?

TenantCloud “I do all of that with TenantCloud and have closed my paid account with AF. I only have 22 properties (all homes), but it works great. I do applications, listings to zillow and others, website, payments, accounting, maintenance, reports and its all free. I am still waiting for the got ya as they are free, but they claim they will always be free for up to 75 units. At SXSW I saw one of their people and they said they will have the ability to get bids on jobs like cleaning, painting and such soon - I assume this is how they make money. “ Ben Travis

Pros: they are new and offer free operations for landlords and tenants
Cons: new company, not mentioned on BP much

Cost: “We get paid by service providers - like insurance companies, plumbing companies, screening companies, A/C and heating, moving companies..... oh you get the idea. TenantCloud is free, but if you decided to use any of the service providers products then you can buy in TenantCloud, which only makes life even more convenient.”

Here are some other alternatives I've noticed.

ERentPayment

Clay Owens said: I just set up ERentPayment last week and they give you an option to accept partial payments or not.

Drew Bonnor said, “rentecdirect.com. This software is so affordable and has features like: automatic payments from your tenants bank account, tenant screening, publishing vacancies to sites such as realtor, zillow, Craigslist, etc., and keeps individual spreadsheets for each of your properties. Give it a look!”

Unitdash – “Unitdash is a free to use property management platform for landlords and property managers. We pride ourselves on our users being able to sign up and hit the ground running. There is no required setup or setup fees. We have all of the features you expect and many nice to haves like custom online rental applications, in-app text messaging, integrated postal mail services and more.

Our online tenant portal allows your tenants to pay rent online and submit maintenance requests for free.” According to Anthony Ascuitto who seems to be associated with it 

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I'm trying to understand the pros and cons of all software in our industry so hope this helps. We are a software company ourselves so it's good to know what works and what doesn't.

Good luck Craig!