Property Management Software- Which is best?

[Rob Chiang]

Tired of working "in" the business and would rather be working "on" the business?

So are we!!  

Implementing Scale-able Systems is the first step for us.  We are currently using Quickbooks and Excel spreadsheets, so any property management software would be a significant upgrade.

We demo'd 4 software choices below:

Background:

We are a growing company that manages 200 units in Bay Area, CA.     

1. App Folio 

Pros:  Fancy Graphics & Packaging.  Great Marketing Tool.

Cons: Rigid Bank Account System.  Total Control required or the software will not work.   The AppFolio rep ended the demo after 2 minutes.

2. Total Management

Pros: Intuitive Interface.  Month-to-month contract.  They were willing to automate emailing monthly reports to each unique owner at no extra cost.  Our out-of-state manager uses this software.  Flexible for Commercial property.  

Cons: No Smartphone App yet.  Cost of the integration/migration.  $1 per residential unit per month. $2.50 per commercial unit per month.

3. Buildium

Pros: Ease of Use.  Month-to-month contract

Cons: Unfamiliar name to us.

4. Yardi

Ultimately we went with Yardi Genesis2.  The reason we chose Yardi is because it's a name that we have heard for decades as the "standard".    The Yardi reports generated are always thorough and detailed, so we decided to go with familiar software.  A management company that we use in Central California manages 8,000 units with Yardi so we thought it was the safe choice.

Pros: No setup cost.  18 Hours included.  Easy Upgrade to Yardi Voyager when 500 Units or more.  Flexible for Commercial property.

Cons: 1 Year up front cost, renews annually.  Time for staff to become proficient with the software- unknown.

All 4 Software have similar recurring cost of $1 per residential unit.  

Please reply with your comments. =)