What property management software do you use??

[Ashton Sharp]

As above, so below. 

What property management software do my fellow landlords use, and why do you prefer that specific software.

What information do you look for/want too see on your monthly reports if you are an owner, and if you are the manager what do you typically get asked to put in these end of month reports? 

[Nathan Gesner]

I started with Microsoft Money, spreadsheets, and notebooks. Then I switched to Buildium. Then I switched to Propertyware.

The big question is: why?

Because I identified my needs and then found software that fit those needs. You can ask 100 people why they use their choice of software and you'll get 100 different answers. My needs are not the same as yours so I can't possibly answer it. 

Before you look for software, you should deliberately spend time listing everything you do and how much time it takes to do each task in a given month (some things only occur once a month, like reconciling accounts). Once you've created your list and filled in the blanks, you should be able to define "bottlenecks" that are taking up your time and slowing down your business. Then start looking for a solution.

Question: why are you chasing software when you only have a few units? You can literally track this all on a free spreadsheet. One page per unit, tenant contact information up top, a running log of charges and payments, work orders off to the side. Or use some of the free software like TenantCloud.

Cool software won't make you better at your job and, for a beginner, is likely to eat up more time than it saves you.