Best Self Managed Propertie Management Platforms

[Ryan Nastase]

I am getting ready to close on my first rental property and am shopping around for the best self-management platform. So far the two I have found that stand out above the crowd are Avail and Cozy.  I really like Avail because it is very well designed and advertises on many websites.  However, I dislike the higher than normal tenant screening fee of $55.  I like Cozy because it has a more moderate priced screening fee and allows for no partial rent payments.  I dislike Cozy because it is harder to navigate than Avail in my opinion.

If you have experience with one of these sites, what is your opinion of it? Also, what is your marketing approach in addition to the limited number of sites these platforms share with (ie Links to Craigslist, MLS, etc)?

Thanks in advance!

Ryan 

[Filipe Pereira]

Cozy is great. We use it in my property management business for tenant screening (background and credit checks), rental listings and online rent payments. Tenants can pay with a bank account (free) or a credit card (processing fee).

You can also set up automatic late fees for tenants, request their renter's insurance policy info, and also send them copies of their lease. Tenants can also submit maintenance requests through Cozy, but we don't personally use it for that.

We've got about 30 tenants here in CT paying rent online through it and it's been great. Very robust and effective. Not to mention, free! The only downside is the wait time for the payments to process. We don't care enough to pay for it to come faster though, so we just wait!

For advertising we use: 
Doorstep.com

Apartments.com

Facebook

Trulia

Zillow

Realtor.com

Hotpads.com

and a few others that aren't coming to mind at the moment!