Rent Manager versus Appfolio versus Buildium

[Gulliver R.]

Hello all, I’m most likely going to be picking one of these. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Rent Manager, Appfolio, and Buildium. What do you like best? Every opinion will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

[Ryan Swan]

@Gulliver R. How many units do you manage? 

Buildium was originally designed for small-medium size portfolios, say under 100 units. Now they are going after the larger property management portfolios and trying to compete with Appfolio. You really need to compare what ancillary services you use the most - eg online rent collection, ACH payments to vendors/rental owners, tenant screening, e-leases, etc. These are the areas where Buildium/Appfolio are going to be different, and even the price tiers within Buildium are going to be different from each other. I haven't personally used Appfolio, but I had a local PM demo his platform for me at a conference and it looked really slick - definitely more powerful/feature rich than Buildium. I think Appfolio is the go-to choice if you're managing more than 150 units. 

I personally use Buildium for my small self managed portfolio and like it over all. They continue to raise prices, so I may look take a look at RentecDirect, or even some free options. 

Please up-vote my answer if you found it to be helpful! - Thanks