Best Property Management Software

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Managing a property involves handling a lot of different roles yourself. You have to work with tenants, fill vacancies, balance your books, and solve maintenance issues. But the right software can make juggling these tasks a lot simpler. Based on our research, TenantCloud is the most best property management software for most people. It’s a robust and comprehensive solution without an enterprise-grade price tag, whether you manage one property or dozens.

The Best Property Management Software for Most

TenantCloud is our top recommendation because smaller businesses can start for free and paid plans start at just $9 per month. The comprehensive free plan is an excellent choice if you have fewer than 75 units because it comes with a free listing website, the ability to accept online payments, accounting features, an agreement builder, and dozens of other essential features to help streamline management across all of your rental properties.

Although the free plan is packed full of helpful features, you may need more. If so, you can upgrade to a paid plan with up to 150 or 500 units, lead generation features, automatic payment options, e-signatures, and a full-fledged CRM software in one package.

The 6 Best Property Management Software Options to Consider

1. TenantCloud – Best property management software for most
2. Buildium – Best for scaling your property management company
3. AppFolio – Best for managing multiple property types
4. Propertyware – Best for managing and scaling your SFP rental business
5. Syncbnb – Best for short stay vacation rentals 
6. Avail – Best for custom application forms and leases

When It Makes Sense to Invest in Property Management Software

Whether you are a property manager responsible for multiple properties or a landlord who has a few real estate investments, property management software helps streamline everyday business activities. 

From managing payments, scheduling appointments, streamlining leasing options, and keeping up with maintenance orders, the right software will free up more of your time so you can focus on other things. They may also cover things like tenant portals, listing sites, and features designed to make the tenant experience amazing.

If you feel like you don’t have enough hands to manage all the moving parts, are still requiring cash or check payments from your tenants, or want to free up time for other things, it’s past time to invest in property management software.

Streamlining, automating, and modernizing your business makes for happy tenants, which makes for longer commitments and a phenomenal reputation to attract new renters.

With so many affordable (and free!) options, you don’t have a lot to lose—but you do have a lot to gain.

#1 – TenantCloud —  The Best Property Management Software for Most

TenantCloud offers a suite of services and management software to make managing your properties easier than ever. It’s also one of the most affordable options on our list (plans start FREE), making it our top pick.

With it, you no longer have to chase payments (with automatic late fees), hassle with disorganized bookkeeping, or waste time on appointments with tenants who aren’t qualified to rent from you. Plus, you can easily handle maintenance requests within the same platform to keep your tenants happy.

If you’re struggling to market your available properties and get them in front of potential tenants, TenantCloud comes with built-in advertising and lead generation integration with Rentler Leads. 

From there, you can create rental applications for applicants to fill out online, thus eliminating the in-person application process. As such, you’ll never miss out on a new opportunity because your application process is outdated.

You easily accept online payments via ACH transfer, PayPal, or debit and credit cards. And, with the built-in accounting system, you don’t have to think about who has paid and who still owes—you can view financials and print receipts with just the click of a button. 

On-demand reporting gives you detailed rental estimates and market trend data that delivers the information you need to make informed real estate decisions. 

Is it time to raise rent? What are other, similar properties in your area going for? With TenantCloud, everything you need to know is front and center so you can ensure profitability while slipping in right under your competition.

To recap, TenantCloud’s most beneficial features include:

• Market trend data
• Rental insurance tracking
• Acceptance of online payments
• Automatic late fees
• Online rental applications
• Accounting tools and resources
• E-sign and rental agreement templates
• General and property expense tracking
• Maintenance request management

The free-forever plan is perfect for managing up to 75 units. However, power features like Rentler Leads and Quickbooks sync, require a paid plan starting at just $9 per month.

For landlords who want to remove the headaches from property management, TenantCloud is a great resource.

#2 – Buildium — The Best for Scaling Your Property Management Company  

Whether you broker home sales or rent to tenants, Buildium is our top pick if you’re ready to scale your management business with powerful software and the right tools running behind the scenes.

Even if you handle special situations like homeowners’ associates, student housing, income-controlled units, or something else entirely, you get complete control over your property management software. It packs the perfect combination of ease of use, scalability, and flexibility into one platform.

Every plan includes basic accounting functionality to ensure your finances are always accurate, reducing data entry and eliminating the risk of making a costly mistake.

You can also create tasks and to-do lists so nothing ever falls through the cracks again. However, one of the coolest features that comes with every plan is the resident portal and mobile app. It centralizes communications, maintenance requests, payments, documents, and more.

In doing so, you reduce late payments and offer an easy way for tenants to pay you.

You can even use the owner dashboard to schedule maintenance requests, set up recurring maintenance schedules, and pay your vendors as well.

Not only that but it also helps you find tenants and buyers, too.

Buildium assists with listing rentals, storing and managing applications, and coordinating showings to help your leasing efforts. You get a free marketing website to list your properties and attract the right leads with ease.

To sweeten the deal, you can create online leases and agreements, regardless of the plan you choose. On the entry-level plan, online leases are $5 apiece but the middle and top tiers include unlimited leases at no extra cost. On the top two tiers, you can also enjoy property inspection features as well.

Aside from standard property management features, there are also a handful of helpful add-ons, including:

• Tenant screening ($15 per screening)
• Premium tenant screening ($18 per screening)
• New leads delivered to your inbox
• The ability to offer renter’s insurance (starts at $12 per month)
• Coordinate showings and open houses (starts at $30 per month(

Another thing you’ll love about Buildium is the customer care support available when questions need to be answered. 

Buildium’s onboarding process ensures a smooth transition to the platform for your company and offers custom training for your staff and makes data transfer seamless.   

Clients and tenants can find all of Buildium’s features in a user-friendly dashboard. 

For your firm, pricing is simple and transparent, as well. Three plans are included: The Essential plan, starting at $50/month, the Growth plan at $160/month, and the Premium property management plan, which starts at $460/month.

As a property management company, having one central location to service all your portfolios is huge. It gives you more time for other important things instead of running all over town doing in-person transactions. 

Buildium is a start-to-finish platform designed to optimize your property management at scale. Try it for free.

#3 – Appfolio — The Best for Managing Multiple Property Types

Appfolio is the first and only piece of software on this list that is equally adept at helping property management firms handle both residential and commercial real estate in one place. So, it’s an excellent choice if you manage both property types.

One of its standout features is custom reporting that gives you the insights you need to make better business decisions. And because it’s based in the cloud, you can take your property management software on the go.

This software offers amazing features for managing every type of property, but some of its most powerful features are for commercial rentals. 

Special tools like common area maintenance, preset rent increases, and reporting that focuses on the metrics most relevant to commercial renters are huge differentiators from the others on this list.

However, both types of property managers have the same goal—to keep all the units full. So, the tools you use for the commercial side of your business can also work well for residential tenants as well.

Bulk email capabilities help you attract new tenants while text message communication keeps an open line between you and current renters to help keep them happy. 

If you also handle residential or student housing, there is a fleet of features in Appfolio that work to attract, screen, and lease to prospective tenants. Appfolio lets you manage a mixed portfolio with no hassle.

One pricing caveat you need to be aware of is the minimum fee per month of $280. The minimum monthly fee goes up to $1,500 per month for Pro features. Here’s a high-level view of the pricing for Appfolio: 

• Commercial: $1.50 per unit/month, $3 per unit/month for the Plus features
• Residential: $1.40 per unit/month, $3 per unit/month for the Plus features
• Community associations: $0.80 per unit/month

For landlords with properties spread throughout one state or many, Appfolio offers versatile benefits to manage them all with one solution. You will remain competitive with modern marketing tools while benefiting from robust accounting software that makes commercial or residential bookkeeping a breeze.  Get a free demo of Appfolio.

#4 – Propertyware – The Best for Managing and Scaling Your SFP Rental Business

Propertyware specializes in single-family property (SFP) rentals, in other words, homes that are not divided into units. 

What a lot of SFP landlords struggle with is growing their business because of having to focus on daily maintenance and day-to-day tasks, not leaving room for marketing and growth. And spending money on a third-party property management firm can get expensive and not offer all the benefits of property management software.   

With simple workflows that automate processes, you’ll be able to save time and money. Create custom fields, dashboards to make your day-to-day more efficient, leaving you available to provide outstanding service across multiple properties. 

The platform’s open API also allows you to smoothly integrate online payments and connect to popular CRMs to unify all your tenant communications and data. 

Built for residential property management, Propertyware also helps you with inspections, a maintenance contact center, lease creation, and specific portals for both tenants and owners that make SFP management child’s play.

Beyond that, Propertyware’s software also includes:

• Lead tracking
• Owner and tenant insurance
• Tenant screening
• Electronic signatures
• Automated fees
• Accounting tools

Propertyware’s pricing starts at just $1 per unit per month (though there is a $250 monthly minimum and an implementation fee).

Propertyware is ideal if you are managing a large quantity of SFP rental properties and allows you to easily scale. Get a free demo of Propertyware.

#5 – Syncbnb — The Best for Short Stay Vacation Rentals

The vacation rental business is booming, even in spite of COVID-19. But having multiple short-term rental properties can be tough, juggling availability and bookings. 

Syncbnb solves this problem with an incredible system that’s easy to use and empowers you to manage all your listings in one place. The platform strives to increase listing exposure and practically guarantees increased bookings for your short stay properties.

As a property owner who holds multiple short-term vacation rentals, you tend to rely on other platforms for booking. So, easily pushing updates to all listing hosts—like Airbnb, Vrbo, or Glamping Hub—is huge. 

Syncbnb’s AI connects to all these channels and more to ensure no delays in updating availability, details, and rates. 

Keep in mind, however, that this is not a full-service solution for short-stay rentals. You are still responsible for collecting payments and handling other business operations manually or through another platform. But, Syncbnb is incredibly useful for updating and filling your multiple vacation rental properties. 

Pricing starts at $15/month and you have options for several other add-ons, such as a consultation for boosting revenue and a website builder. Plus, you can try Syncbnb for 30 days for no charge. 

#6 – Avail — The Best for Custom Application Forms and Leases 

Avail is another property management platform that suits DIY landlords but offers a level of customization beyond that of others. 

Of course, this cloud-based platform lets you collect, find, and screen tenants, but it allows for fully customized leasing agreements. 

Start from a standard state-specific template, then edit or add clauses, rules, and attachments. Once complete, you can send it over to your prospective tenant and they can legally bind the deal with an e-signature. 

Avail also allows you to post your listings directly on Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, and other top rental sites with the push of a button. After your listing is up and you need to send an application, you can start with preset standard questions but also customize it, so you get all the pertinent information you need and a complete tenant profile.  

The free version of Avail offers digital leasing, auto-pay, rent deposits, confirmation on credit and eviction reporting, background checks, income verification, and more at no cost. That’s right, you don’t have to pay one cent to start using most of these powerful features.

With that said, the $5 per unit per month plan is extremely affordable and gives you the website builder options and waives ACH fees. 

Methodology for Choosing the Best Management Software

When reviewing the mountain of property management software providers available, we used a methodology based on the needs of property managers and landlords and also the biggest problems faced in day-to-day property management.

Property Type

Do you manage residential or commercial properties? Or a combination of both?

Some software is tailored to just making leasing rentals and collecting payments easy, while others expand to handle oversight of many diverse properties and help with compliance.

Ask yourself can this software accommodate the needs of my property type or types? This is the first and easiest question to answer when choosing your optimal software. 

Number of Units 

How many rentals are you trying to keep full? 

A landlord with a handful of residential rentals doesn’t need software like Appfolio that has a pricing and feature structure advantageous to larger firms. 

Things will change as you scale. But, when deciding where to start, make sure you are not paying for features you don’t need. If you manage a smaller amount of properties there might even be a free version of property management software that will do the trick.

Features and Customization

Services that let you customize your lease agreements, contract forms, and dashboard software can streamline your daily workflow. 

Look for specific benefits that help you where you’re hurting the most. Perhaps maintenance management is where you need a tool that will set up appointments and be directly linked to your maintenance vendor. So, direct communication through mobile apps or texting will keep maintenance requests fulfilled and your tenants happy when there is a problem. 

Or, built-in marketing features can keep your rentals, homes, and other property vacancies down to a minimum. Some platforms help you with lead generation to keep your sales pipeline full.     

Always remember you may have to pay a little more if you want to have as many features as possible. Just make sure they are what you need, and they are useful. 

Property Manager vs. Landlord

Landlords, especially ones with few rentals to stay on top of, have much different needs than property management companies.

For example, a property management company needs software that accommodates team members and may require multiple logins and additional security features. The software must satisfy the owner of the property and the tenants. And as property companies grow, the software must grow with it.

Landlords are often more hands-on, so pay attention to software that caters to the DIY landlord through features like customized reporting and lease creation and accounting tools or Quickbooks integration. 

Also, here’s where to really focus on pricing. If you’re a landlord of a couple properties, you’re going to look for a cost-effective supplement, but if you’re a large property management firm, you can afford to spend more to constantly fill vacancies and streamline processes.

Property management software usually varies and can include many factors. Software on this list charges as little as $0.80 per unit/month, but remember many have monthly minimum requirements. Some software on this list also offers free versions that can be acceptable if you don’ t have many units or properties. 

Summary

What’s the best property management software for you or your firm? That’s only a question you can answer. What I have done is offer you a methodology to use as a compass when figuring out what’s important to focus on. 

In this guide we offered our six top picks for property management software. Whether you’re a property management company that owns thousands of units or a landlord that owns only one residential property, you will find in this guide the software to accommodate your needs.