So I went hunting for a Property Management System

[Kevin L.]

NOTE:  I have not received ANY form of compensation for this post.  None was requested and none was/will be accepted.  I am writing this to simply help other people that may be in the position that I found myself.

In January of this year, I went hunting for a new Property Management System.  We went from 9 to 11 properties and also knew that we had to start accepting payments online.  

Our requirements were fairly straightforward: manage tenants, track/process rent, track expenses, accept online payments, decent reports (or give me the data so I can make my reports), have a decent interface and have good support.  I took a look at the following: Rentec (which we previously used), 123Landlord, Buildium, Cozy, Easyrent, Rentpost, Tenant Ledger, Smart Property Systems and Tenant Cloud.  I quickly ruled out 123Landlord, Cozy, Easyrent, Rentpost, Tenant Ledger and Smart Property Systems.  Propertyware was briefly considered, but immediately ruled out because of the $250 monthly minimum.  Below are my thoughts on Rentec, 123Landlord, Tenant Cloud and Buildium.

Rentec:

Decent but wayyyy outdated.  They also recently bumped their prices up for the smallest of landlords.  This is what pushed us to start hunting...  We have been with them since the start of our small company 5 years ago.  Up until recently, when we added two new properties and also wanted to take online payments, they told us that we had to go from $15 per month to $45 per month.  Since they offered nothing to try and keep our business, we vote with our feet and have walked away.  While their support and system are decent, I would not recommend them.  They have no loyalty to long-term customers, so I have no loyalty for them.

123Landlord:

I had been using this as a trial account for some time.  It is ok, but not outstanding.  I found it requiring a lot of clicks.  I really don't have much commentary past that.  I am sure it is fine for some.

Tenant Cloud:

Great interface...  Very clean and EASY to use.  The tenant screening portion is through RentPrep (which we love) and is FAST.  Initially we went with this product and signed-up/paid for 12 months.  But that is when all of the problems began.  Shortly after signing-up and creating a second "admin" account, which is NOT an admin account because TC doesn't accommodate true user management, the second account was locked-out.  I reached out to their support and then waited, and waited, and waited.  Their support is clearly off-shore, as you don't get a response for up to 24-48 hours.  Can you imagine if you had a massive problem?  Back to the secondary admin account: the "second" admin account can't do all admin functions (i.e. payments etc.) - so it really isn't an "admin" account.  As some have mentioned on the forums, it takes days and days and days (4-5 to be exact) to get your payments through dwolla.  Also, their "accounting" portion is only for very very light expense tracking (and only if it fits their model - i.e. you cannot add any expense/revenue categories/accounts).  We quickly learned that this would not be the system for us.  I requested a refund of the unused portion only (11 months) via a ticket (since that is the ONLY way to communicate with them.  They refused and I am still arguing this as it is unused.

Buildium:

This is the one that I kept going back to...  I compared everything to it.  My only hesitancy was the $45 minimum per month; which is my only real gripe with them (do something for the smaller folks ya know....).  Buildium really has it going on...  Their accounting portion, and especially the reports, is absolutely OUTSTANDING.  EFT payments clear in 1 business day and you have them in your account on the 2nd business day (which really isn't this why all of us are here - to get paid and paid quickly).  I have yet to use the bill pay portion, but we will tackle that soon.  I am really pleased with our purchase and look forward to adding many more properties to Buildium.

Save yourself the trouble, go to Buildium.  I went back and forth on systems for two months comparing everything to Buildium.  My mom (and the owner of our small property management company) told me to quit trying to be cheap and get the RIGHT product.  So I am going pass along her wisdom, don't go cheap - it doesn't always pay or save time.