Buildium: Stand Alone Property Management Software?

[Zachary C.]

Hello Property Managers and Investors,

I would like to start a productive little discussion on Buildium. The other day I briefly looked over the Buildium account of a PM company that has been in business for quite some time. They only utilize certain features of Buildium and I have seen that some others do that as well, supplementing it with Quickbooks, Quicken, etc. If you have experience with Buildium I would love to hear about it, and I am sure others would as well; in-fact if you are interested in seeing some quality answers why don't you vote up this topic.

First, if you don't mind, share a little info to help put your experience with Buildium into perspective; like how long you have used it, around how many doors do you manage with it (your investments, other people investments, or both?), do you use it standing alone or coupled with other platforms (if you started one way and switched, why? which direction?). This should help those (like me) trying to learn about Buildium put your experience and advice into perspective and create a productive environment.

Some specific points:

1. I have seen pretty consistent views that Buildium had good tools and systems for managing the different properties tenants and owners. Things like your screenings, online payments and deposits, lease/rental agreements, etc. One of the area that I have seen a much bigger split in views is accounting. What is your take on the accounting features of Buildium? Is it good for tracking the tenant and owner financial data? How about your financial data as the Property Manager? Can you pull the necessary numbers and/or reports from Buildium that you and your owners will need come tax season to hand off to your tax professional?

2. Aside from the financial reports, how is Buildium for tracking the progress of your company? Are there easy ways to track and view vital information? For instance can you view reports with average data from all of your properties and then also view that same information for individual properties for performance comparisons; like average time between tenants (vacancy rates), avg. maintenance cost, avg. length of stay, and other data that might help you determine a list of top to bottom performers and which you might consider letting go? How about other areas like the average time an owner stays with your management services, how many doors you are adding versus how many you are loosing? If you manage other people properties does Buildium provide the stats that prospective clients typically ask?

3. If there are features that you really love or hate about Buildium, and you didn't already discuss them, please share those with us as well.

Thank you,

[Dawn Brenengen]

@Zachary C. I'll bump this thread.  I use Buildium and have for about three years.  Each year, I utilize more and more features, and they constantly come up with ways to better the program.  It's not perfect, but I don't really have any complaints other than my own inability to figure out all the details.

1.  I use it for online payments from tenants and then to the owners.  I use it for both my own properties and the ones I manage for others.  I use Zipforms and Docusign for leases, and Residential Research for tenant screening.  The accounting works for me, but I have also heard that others have had complaints about it.  I may just not know enough to be disappointed with it, but it works for my needs.

2.  I don't think it provides any statistical data, but I believe you can use it for 30 days or so for free and play with it.  There are a lot of reports available, but I think they are mostly accounting based.  They recently added company accounting to the programs, so you can account for your operating expenses as a OM company, not just the expenses related to the properties.

3. I could use some one on one training, which they have for new clients, but they do not take the time with existing clients to support them.  They do have great support by phone if you call with a specific question, but no overall, step by step training modules.

[Zachary C.]

@Dawn Brenengen,

Awesome, thanks for your input!

[Jerry W.]

@Dawn Brenengen, can you give us an idea of what your monthly or yearly cost is with Buildium?  I understand the cost is based upon the number of units you use the software on.  Is that correct?

[Niyi Adewole]

Jose Ramos can you help answer the pricing question above?

[Zachary C.]

@Jerry W. & @Niyi Adewole,

The pricing is available on their website @ https://www.buildium.com/pricing/. It has a nifty little feature where you can input the number of properties you have and then it will show you the price for that and whats included with the different package rates (core and pro). Now if there are hidden fees thats something that people with experience could add to the conversation because I'm not sure about that.

[Dawn Brenengen]

@Jerry W. If I remember correctly. I pay 1080/year for up to 100 properties.  I probably pay another $50/month in banking fees to transfer $ to owners and to accept rent.

[Zachary C.]

That sounds so much more expensive when you think about it annually instead of monthly. But, if I remember correctly when I look at some other highly recommended programs, like Appfolio, Buildium was the more reasonably priced one.

[Alex S.]

What are some solution for some one that has 8-10 properties? 

[Zachary C.]

@Alex S.

There is a point where it is worth the expense I am sure, and I am sure that it depends on cashflow as much, if not more, than the number of properties. My thought is that while still newer and learning, or small in properties and/or cash flow the best thing would be to excel it in as much detail as possible or to use some accounting software that is cheap or free that can perform the necessary functions. In my opinion this helps you develop a good understanding of what is important to pay attention to. To make a smart decision on how to go about that you definitely need to talk to the tax professional that will be doing your taxes, because in the end thats one of the two primary purposes of tracking this information. The other is to analyze your progress, success, value, etc.; this you can do in excel and continue to play with and change things to your need as you see fit or develop along. For my property I am using quickbooks for my accountant and excel for myself, trying to come up with my own system and letting quickbooks also be my backup incase I royal screwup the excel.

[Jose Ramos]

@Niyi Adewole is right on point. Pricing is per unit base and allows you to have unlimited users and data. Let me know if you would like me to clarify anything from what can be found on the pricing page. 

[Madeline Burke]

@Zachary C. and @Alex S. There are also some less-robust but free online-based software options the are totally enough when you only have a few properties. 

I don't want to toe the line into conflict of interest because I work for one of those companies but if you google "free landlord software" you'll get a number or competitive options that should suit you better than just Excel until you grow into a paid model. 

[Zachary C.]

@Madeline Burke,

First of all, thanks for the input. I will definitely do a little googling around. 

What kind of key features do these software programs provide that make them better than excel, any of the stuff I was asking about in the original post? Also, what features are they missing that I would want to grow into the paid model?

[Madeline Burke]

@Zachary C. I haven't used all of them but largely I think they lack analytics or scale-able ways to organize larger portfolios. 

Several free services generate professional looking single-property webpages and automatically syndicate your listings to different numbers of major listing sites so you can market by clicking one button every time you turnover. 

Online rental applications are nice too because it integrates the screening process. Personally I like that it puts the application fee/credit screening in the hands of a third party (or "scape goat") for when you have to give an applicant bad news ;)

The main thing, though, is online or automated rent payments. Having that is such a relief. And most of these tools send rent reminders, automatically add a late fee, and only charge the tenant a small processing fee.

Feel free to DM me if you want to talk specifics. Otherwise- good luck!

[Brian Adams]

@Zachary C., I used Buildium for about a month on one of my assets a 200+ unit deal - this was about 2 years ago. Buildium is not that robust compared to other programs and wouldn't recommend it for large deals.

Buildium might be good for smaller properties, but I don't have any working experience for smaller assets.

[Zachary C.]

@Brian Adams,

From your experience do you think it's not good for a large number of units or just large buildings? For instance it wasn't good for you for a 200 unit apartment, do you think it would also not be good for a 200 unit portfolio mixed with SFH and small multi-family units? What was it that you really didn't like, that made it not robust?

[Brian Adams]

@Zachary C., the disclaimer is I haven't used the program for 2 years so things could have changed.

I buy 100 to 400 unit deals and my management companies use and I have experience with Yardi, PEAK, OneSite to name a few.

You may want to checkout Rent Manager.

Good luck

[Zachary C.]

Thanks @Brian Adams

[Kari Miller]

Originally posted by @Brian Adams:

@Zachary C., the disclaimer is I haven't used the program for 2 years so things could have changed.

I buy 100 to 400 unit deals and my management companies use and I have experience with Yardi, PEAK, OneSite to name a few.

You may want to checkout Rent Manager.

Good luck

Thanks for the Rent Manager shout out Brian!

Zach, with any of the software options mentioned, it really depends on what you are looking for. Across the board, we are all trying to strengthen our accounting features as well as add a few of the tech upgrades mentioned here like online applications, online payments, etc. Some of the biggest differences you'll run into are how they operate at a core level - what they look like, how to find information, and if you can customize the software to fit your needs or if you have to use what's available.

Most should be able to handle the accounting without needing yet another software to manage it, like Quickbooks. If it does need another software to handle the accounting, I'd make sure they work together and there isn't a need for manual updates. 

Good luck!

[Steve K.]

Great thread. I'm new and looking for good software that is inexpensive and can grow with my business. 

[Steve K.]

@Madeline Burke Do you happen to know approximately when TurboTenant will have online automated rent payment capability? Thanks! 

[Ryan Bonner]

Does anyone use cozy?

[Waverly Rennie]

@Ryan Bonner I started using Cozy for a long term tenant- I mostly rent out my places as AirBnB, much better ROI, but I had inherited two long term tenants. It works well, pretty simple, but she pays on the 1st and I get the $ in my account on the 7th. I liked how you set up the lease for the tenant (how much they need to pay every month, when it's due, and when the lease ends) but I guess I didn't remember to factor in the fact that she had paid her last month rent up front, so I had to go in and change the lease to end a month early. For my other long term tenant, I got him an ATM card that's deposit-only and goes into my biz account at BOA. He goes by and deposits the $ on the 1st (actually, often on the 29th or 30th) and it's in my account that day. There is an ID number on the ATM card so I guess you could have lots of tenants paying with their unique ID number and you could easily track who has paid and who hasn't. This is just a tiny bit of experience but thought I'd share anyway.

Good luck and thanks for the thread

[John Moon]

Has anyone used Venmo or Paypal to receive payments from tenants? What could be some negatives to doing this?

The pros are you get the money fast and it's easy for tenant and landlord to use an app to pay. 

[Zachary C.]

@Kari Miller 

Thanks, I assume you are with Rent Manager. Does that program have any of the analyzing features I discussed in the opening of this post (point 2)?

[Zachary C.]

@Waverly Rennie,

Thanks for sharing, even if its just a "tiny bit" you never know what piece of information may help solve someone else's puzzle. I always enjoy seeing post like that, creative ideas and unique methods help expand the mind and the options one can come up with.