Where To Begin Choosing Software

Question

I've worked as a court reporter, but work is very slow in my neck of the woods, so I've accepted a property management position with a small real estate company. We currently manage the owner/agents property only, as I am not certified in property management, which is a whole 'nother set of questions I hope to have for you in the future. Presently, we manage 80 homes.

We plan to open our doors to managing property for others, perhaps in a year or two. In preparation for expansion, we need to consider new software. We are currently using QuickBooks. I have only been working for this company for one month, and I can already tell that QuickBooks does not suit our needs.

I've Googled "property management software" till I'm blue in the face. I know the frustrations I deal with in using QuickBooks for property management, but I have no clue what features are available in true property management software, nor do I have any idea of the price ranges. I did learn, though, that there is "online" software. I didn't realize that existed. As you can see, I have a very, very long way to go.

I have taken a glance at the "Online Property Management Software" link that Joshua provided in another post, but I've not looked at them thoroughly yet, as I'm not sure what I should keep an eye out for.

I do not want to buy software to only discover at a later time that I should have purchased more extensive software. My question is: Can anyone provide me with tips for software hunting, such as what to avoid, what to seek out, which features are vital, etc.? And I apologize in advance for my dumb questions. As you can tell, I have a long way to go. :lol:

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

Dorraine - Many so called review sites are actually owned by the very people that they are reviewing. I've seen many sites "GURU NAME Review" that are owned by that very guru. There are VERY well known review sites that rip apart other "gurus/experts" and then promote their own experts. You name it. Many companies have even tried to send their employees here to BP and pretend to be satisfied customers - this happens quite often, actually -- probably once per week. Bottom line -- be careful when reading reviews -- and be very wary in trusting people.

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

Dorraine - Be wary of ANY reviews from websites that derive affiliate income from talking about different software/websites that they are reviewing. It appears that the one you mention above does this -- in checking 2 of the reviews, I noted that I was redirected through an income-producing affiliate link. Just something to consider.....

Dorraine S. · Answer

Joshua, I'm shakin' my head. I reckon that if they're so desperate to get positive reviews that they have to resort to something of that nature, that ought to be a red flag for a buyer, for sure. What a shame.

Dorraine S. · Answer

Joshua, Ah-hah! I was totaly unaware of that. I most certainly appreciate the tip!

Dorraine S. · Answer

Jeffrey, And that's exactly the type of feedback I need. THANK YOU.

Jeffrey K. · Answer

I would contact a rep and they will send you info on it. I don't know many Pros who use anything else. It is just a matter of which product of theirs you buy and if you want to have servers or have it hosted in the cloud.

Dorraine S. · Answer

David, Thank you for the tip. I'm online looking at Rent Manager now. Once I finish with that one, I'll take a look at Buildium. Again, thank you for the input. I need all the direction I can get!

Dorraine S. · Answer

Jeffrey, Don't know why, but I keep gravitating to Yardi. I've looked at their site upteen million times; although, I cannot seem to get a clear picture of it yet. We're planning to really beef up our busines, roughly a year from now. If we bring in more clients, we certainly need to be prepared to handle them. I also want to be able to enter information very easily, generate reports quickly, and be able to find what I'm looking at the click of a mouse. I also want the landlords and tenants to have access to their account online. Those are my few "wants" for now. LOL. Still have lots to learn before I know what my wants and needs will be. When I was working as a court reporter, another reporter recommended a certain software to me. Without being familiar with what was available on the market, I called the sales rep, and they convinced me that their software was the best. The software did in fact do lots of great things, so I purchased it for $5,000. As a few years went by, I was exposed to other court reporting software, and quickly realized that my software was on the lower level of functionality. I'm trying to avoid that same mistake with property management software. Although my court reporting software would do great things, the same great things as the other court reporting software, and "roughly" around the same price, I had to stand on my head, touch the light switch, and curl my left pinky toe in order to get it to perform a function. The ofther court reporting software on the market provided the same features as mine, but were much, much, much more user friendly, taking a quarter of the time to complete a function. I was dumfounded at how difficult it was to perform a function on one software and how easy it was to perform that same function on another. And, yes, I am past QuickBooks. I'm new to property management, but I can tell you already that QuickBooks does NOT provide for what we need. Are you aware of any YouTube video clips or reviews or demos that preview Yardi, or anything of the such? I'd like to see it in action prior contacting a sales rep, so that I'll know what questions to ask the sales rep.

David Beard · Answer

I was talking to a prop mgr the other day that used http://www.rentmanager.com/. They will do an on-line demo with you if you give them a call. http://www.buildium.com is another popular program I've heard spoken favorably of.

Jeffrey K. · Answer

If you are going to be doing anything serious you want Yardi. If you are past Quickbooks the other stuff is a waste of time. We are about to make the switch and it will be expensive. Do as much as you can with Quickbooks and MS Office and then upgrade to Yardi. You want something in the cloud because you dont want to have to keep servers going and secure.