The Best Property Software for Landlords

Owning a piece of commercial or investment property comes with a lot of additional responsibilities. Being a landlord means you’ve got to keep your property in good condition, respond to tenant needs and requests, and ensure that you keep all your documentation organized, accessible, and secure. That’s why most landlords turn to property management software to help them. If you’re looking for ways to make being a commercial or investment property owner easier, here’s a selection of some of the best property software for landlords currently out there on the market today.

What Role Does Property Software Play?

Property software for landlords is an invaluable tool, as it helps landowners and property managers to keep a close eye on everything that goes into the care and maintenance of a rental property. The capabilities of a good property software platform typically include the following:

• Marketing tools to aid in leasing vacant properties 
• Tools for screening prospective tenants and conducting background checks
• Methods for online rent payment collection
• Maintenance and repair request processing
• Income and operating expense tracking
• Online vendor and utility invoice payment systems
• Monthly cash flow and income statement compiling
• Year-end tax-ready financial statement generation

A Selection of Some of the Best Rental Property Software Platforms

Thankfully, there’s no dearth of property software platforms available to help landlords accomplish all these tasks. Many of these platforms are either free to use or offer a tiered subscription-based model that offers a wider selection of tools than free versions. Yet because of their diversity, you’re likely to find a property management software platform that meets your needs. Here’s a short list of some of the best and most helpful.

Cozy

For small-scale property investors, Cozy is an excellent starting point. This free property software offers plenty of functionality like vacant rental marketing, tenant screening, online rental applications, and online rent collection. Secure document upload and storage and property income and expense tracking round out the landlord-side features.

Meanwhile, Cozy also offers helpful tools for tenants at well, and at reasonable price points. Tenants can get renters insurance through Cozy for around $20 a month and can also obtain tenant screening reports and other services for a small fee as well.

Landlord Studio

You don’t have to be a major property owner to get started as a landlord. If you’re looking for simple and easy-to-use property software, then Landlord Studio may be an excellent choice for you. That’s because it’s designed to be an all-in-one property management solution that provides access to rental accounting services, makes online rent collection easy, and enables tenant screening.

Landlord Studio’s pricing is just as flexible. A 14-day trial period helps you get started, while three subscription tiers are eminently affordable. For landlords with 3 rental units or fewer, the Start tier is just $5.99 a month. For growing portfolios, the Growth tier is $9.99 a month. Meanwhile, landlords with 20 or more units are best served by choosing the Scale tier at $19.99 a month.

Buildium

An all-in-one property software solution for landlords, Buildium is an excellent choice for larger portfolios. Whether you have affordable housing communities, student housing, or other larger-scale residential rentals, Buildium’s capabilities are robust and all-encompassing. Features include being able to accept and process online rent payments, lease management tools, tracking and accounting tools for incomes and expenses, and message board communication systems for building residents. 

Buildium comes with a free trial for landlords looking to test-drive the software. After that, there are three tiers of service, starting at Essential at $50 per month. Second- and third-tier service levels include Growth at $160 per month and Premium at $460 per month, all of which offer additional capabilities depending on the size of your property portfolio and your needs.

Hemlane

Need a more flexible property management solution? Hemlane could be the answer. Thanks to its all-in-one approach that can accommodate landlords from a single rental unit to as many as 100, Hemlane offers a suite of features including vacancy advertising on 30 rental listing websites, applicant tracking, tenant screening, lease management, online income and expense reporting, and a maintenance and repair portal.

Hemlane offers a free month for new signups and has two subscription-based tiers. The first tier, Basic, is $36.50 for one unit, with the price increasing depending on how many units you need support for. The Essential plan, which is $49 for one unit, also includes around-the-clock repair coordination capabilities as well to sweeten the pot.

Propertyware

Single-family homes are popular rental properties, and many investors have dozens or even hundreds of these properties in their portfolios. Larger investors need to pay close attention to each of their properties, and a platform like Propertyware is an excellent choice. Designed for landlords with a large number of single-family homes they’re renting out, Propertyware offers a large selection of features like listing syndication for vacant property marketing, lead tracking and follow-up capabilities, maintenance request handling, online rent collection, accounting tools, and a vendor portal as well.

While Propertyware has a large and robust feature set, it also carries some hefty costs – which is why it’s ideal for larger investors with plenty of properties to bear the costs. Implementation and set-up fees are around $500, while minimum monthly rates begin at $250 and then go higher depending on your specific needs.

The Last Word on Property Sofware for Landlords

Owning investment properties takes a commitment to excellence, attention to detail, and diligence in selecting tenants appropriately. Meeting all these requirements can be made much easier by selecting a quality property software management suite. Selecting the right property software for landlords will simplify and streamline the business of managing and maintaining an investment property, leading to a better ongoing return on that investment.

Ben Shepardson is a Realty Biz News Contributing Writer and has a long track record of success in online marketing and web development. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, he worked doing enterprise-level SEO and started an online business offering web development services to small business customers.

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