Supercharge Your Real Estate Processes With Top Property Management Software

Supercharge Your Real Estate Processes With Top Property Management Software process.st/top-property-management-software December 11, 2020

Molly Stovold December 11, 2020

“The global property management software market size was valued at USD 1.58 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2% from 2020 to 2027.” – Grand View Research, Property Management Software Market Size Real estate is evolving. And technology – or to be more specific – top property management software is the driving force behind the evolution.

Fortunately for all of you real estate market players, this post is here to help you get clued up on all things tech, so you can stock your property management digital toolkit.

To find out about top property management software and to understand how it can help you mitigate human error, enhance communication, save time, and automate recurring tasks – keep on scrolling.

Or alternatively, to skip to a specific section, click the links below: 1/13

Let’s get started!

An introduction to property management software Simply put, property management software is a cloud-based, tech-driven system that streamlines your real estate processes. Top property management software means saying goodbye to outdated legacy systems. It is your ticket to managing properties with ease, efficiency, and automation.

Typically, property management software is built up of features that optimize real estate processes like accounting, maintenance, inspection, communication, and reporting.

The webinar below demonstrates these features in action using Process Street’s property management software: As you can see from the webinar, implementing property management software transforms your real estate tasks into workflows. In this case with Process Street, the structured workflows come in the form of dynamic templates and checklists.

When you build checklists for all of your recurring, daily tasks, you benefit from a simplified workflow that allows you to automate many of those manual tasks and means that you will be less vulnerable to human error because the whole process is right there in front of you.

Another big positive of property management software is its digital nature. Cloud-based systems not only provide easy access to all of your real estate processes, but they also ensure all of your data is stored in one safe location. This means that by using a cloudbased management system, you have a single source of truth for all of your data.

How can top property management software streamline your processes?

The steady and substantial growth of the property management software market (to re-cap, that’s a CAGR of 5.2%) indicates 2 things: The first is that within the real estate realm, technology is here to stay. The second is that as an outcome of the market’s continued growth, there is an abundance of real estate software, systems, and technological tools to choose from.

So, how do you go about choosing the right property management software?

Although the answer depends almost entirely on your individual needs, this post is here to make sure that you make an informed decision when choosing which top property management software is for you. The next section will help you get clued up on the benefits 2/13

of digitizing your real estate processes.

Benefits of property management software Cost Property software is low cost (if not free) and it saves money that is normally spent on outsourcing mundane, manual tasks that can be automated or easily replicated.

Increase revenue Not only can you save costs with property management software, but you can also earn yourself even more money. By automating tasks, you provide yourself with more time to invest in other tasks that can increase your profit and revenue.

Human error ​♂️ Real estate relies on human relationships. This is why it’s important to automate where possible to avoid human error. Whether you are tenant screening, coordinating appointments, or supervising maintenance – automation can help to mitigate slip-ups.

How? By having predetermined, digitally stored processes in your real estate toolbox.

Automation One of the most advantageous benefits of property management software is its ability to automate time-consuming, recurring tasks. Automation feeds into the aforementioned benefits too because it helps to both mitigate human error and save you time.

Saves time ⏰ According to Silvia Liu, author of 7 Habits of Highly Successful Property Managers, creating standardized processes and digitally documenting your real estate tasks ensures consistency and operational efficiency, while also reducing training time.

Simply put, property management software saves you time.

Scalability ⚖ The time that is being saved can be used to drive growth for your businesses. Having all of your data in one place and stored in the property management software means that scaling will be simple. You’ll be able to quickly view what is working and why, and build on it … (pun intended ).

Sustainable As a real estate business, moving towards a digitized document management system will not only help you cultivate a single source of truth, it’s also good for the planet. Why? Because it reduces paperwork. Less paper = fewer trees being chopped down to produce the paper and more trees cleaning the air you breathe. A digital single source of truth also means all of your data is easy to back-up and recover.

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Accessibility ✋ Digitizing your real estate tasks ensures that they are accessible from a whole array of devices, including your mobile. You can always have your property management processes at your fingertips.

Communication Property management software facilitates communication at all levels. But, don’t just take my word for it: “One of the most effective ways to humanize the property management experience is by providing better communication. Figuring out what residents want in order to improve service can be a complicated and daunting task. But today, a company can easily leverage automated surveys and other forms of real-time communication to glean real, useful feedback from residents” – Doug Brien, How Technology And Automation Humanize The Property Management Experience With all the benefits of property management software covered, let’s take a look a closer look at the software itself.

Top 10 property management software Landlord Studio

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Landlord Studio launched in 2017 and has quickly developed a solid piece of property management software that does everything you need it to — from setting reminders to tenant screening and logging rent payments, to auto-generating professional reports.

How Landlord Studio describe themselves: “Landlord Studio gives you the accounting and property management tools you need to save time and money while managing your rentals.”

Pricing: The image above depicts Landlord Studio’s pricing. They also offer a free trial period of 14 days.

Buildium

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Buildium is a cloud-based property management software that specializes in optimizing the tenant-rental-owner relationship by offering lease tracking, customizable rental applications, automated rent collection, tenant screening, and other useful features.

However, there is a lot more to the platform than improving the tenant-owner relationship.

Buildium’s software also addresses many other areas of property management.

How Buildium describe themselves: “You can approve lease applications, resolve maintenance issues, handle payments and update financials, from wherever you are”.

Pricing: The image above shows Buildium’s pricing. They also offer a free trial period of 14 days.

Turbo-tenant

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Turbotenant prioritizes fluid communication by allowing you to send individual or bulk messages to tenants from a single inbox. Turbo-tenant facilitates the creation of dedicated property listing pages to help you rent out your properties as quickly and easily as possible.

How Turbo-tenant describe themselves: “Turbo-tenant is the all-in-one, FREE property management tool that streamlines how you manage the rental process. The world’s easiest way to screen tenants, market your rental, receive applications, and collect rent online.�

Pricing: Turbo-tenant is free for landlords/property managers. However, there are addon features that need to be paid for should you want them. These add-on features involve a one-time purchase and include Lease Agreements ($29), Electronic Signatures ($9), Forms Pack ($99), and Rent Estimate Report ($14.99).

Syncbnb

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Syncbnb is slightly more niche than the other property management software mentioned as it focuses on syncing property calenders together.

How Syncbnb describe themselves: “Double your revenue by synchronizing your calendars and rates across 200+ channels, with 100% success and ️Zero Double Booking Guarantee ️.”

Pricing: Syncbnb offers a longer free trial period of 30 days and has varied pricing plans depending on what it is you are after. These include: Channel Manager ($19 per month): This plan uses advanced AI, cutting edge software and human quality assurance to make sure you have all your calendars updated and synchronized.

Revenue Booster ($75 per property/channel): The name gives it away; this plan focuses on boosting revenue.

Website Builder ($599):A high-quality, optimized website built specifically to meet your personalized to your needs.

Avail

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Avail makes it easy for landlords to find tenants, screen tenants, and sign leases. You can also use this software to collect rent from any of your devices, run background checks and credit reports, check eviction history, and so on.

The best part about Avail is that their unlimited plan is completely free. There is, however, an option to upgrade to the paid software. The upgrade offers premium features like custom rent applications and leases, next day rent payments, and no ACH transfer fees.

That said, Avail is not as feature-rich as some of the other top property software management software.

How Avail describes themselves: “Feel good about the way you manage your rentals.

Find tenants, view credit history, sign leases, and collect rent — on any device, with tools built specifically for DIY landlords.”

Pricing: As you can see from the image above, Avail offers a free unlimited option and an “Unlimited Plus Plan” which grants you access to more features.

Tenant Cloud

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Tenant Cloud is ideal if you don’t want to outsource your real estate tasks to a property management company. The software is great for managing finances and has a built-in accounting system that facilitates rent payments online via ACH transfer, PayPal, and credit/debit cards.

Simply put, Tenant Cloud has everything you need to manage properties in an easy and efficient manner – completely on your own.

How Tenant Cloud describe themselves: “TenantCloud is a top of the line system that provides Landlords with tenants management; full accounting; online payments; online maintenance requests; free listing website; postings on multiple listing sites; online applications; tenant screening; automatic invoicing; property analysis report.”

Pricing: The software’s free trial is a basic version, with limited access to features, but it does not have a time limit (unlike the other apps). It also has paid for “Standard” and “Advanced” options.

Appfolio

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Appfolio is an all-in-one solution. The app includes a wide range of features which include online applications and leases, tenant screening, owner and renter portals, accounting, online rent payment, maintenance requests, messaging (individually and in bulk), and more – all of which is neatly packed into nifty, easy to use the app.

The app is also highly rated amongst its users and Appfolio’s user base particularly love its intuitive UI and automation capabilities.

How Appfolio describe themselves: “AppFolio gives you and your team the ability to run your business, stay connected, and communicate with customers — from anywhere.”

Pricing: The image above depicts Appfolio’s pricing. You can also request a “ Free Demo“.

Propertyware

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Propertyware enables you to manage the entire renter life cycle, from online payment processing to customer portals and work order management tools. It is a cloud-based, endto-end property management platform.

Founded in 1998, Propertyware is one of the oldest full-service property management platforms around. The platform’s stand-out feature, when compared to other market leaders like Appfolio and Buildium, is that it offers access to its API, enabling users to customize their processes.

Users can set up automated alerts, create unique dashboards displaying specific KPIs, share data with third-party applications, and import outside data for use inside their property management system.

However, the customizable nature and the extensive number of features have caused some users to complain about its over-complexity.

How Propertyware describe themselves: “Propertyware is the all-in-one customizable single-family property management solution perfect for companies looking to grow doors, increase revenue, and optimize profits.�

Pricing: Propertyware has a Basic ($1 pm), Plus ($1.50 pm), and Premium ($2 pm) option. They also offer a free trial when you sign up.

Process Street

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I’ve already touched on Process Street in the webinar featured earlier in this post.

To re-cap: by digitally documenting your workflows into neat checklists, you apply a structure to your tasks and create an actionable workflow. Process Street also has a mobile app meaning you can tick off all of your tasks as you do them/when you’re on the go.

The app is stacked full of great features that enable you to assign team members to tasks, automate processes, and create integrations with heaps of other apps using Zapier (I’ll go over this tool next).

How Process Street describe themselves: “Process Street is the simplest way to manage your properties, tenants, landlords & clients.”

Pricing: The image featured above depicts Process Street’s pricing plans (Basic, Standard, and Enterprise). We also offer a 14-day trial.

Useful real estate tools 1. Zapier – Integrations between apps : Zapier (as mentioned above) facilitates integrations with Process Street, as well as CRM platforms like Lion Desk and Zillow Tech. In the real estate world, this frees up your time by automatically adding your leads’ contact information to your CRM. 2. Zillow – App for listings, valuations, buying, and selling: Zillow is great for managing any real estate business either as a landlord or a property manager.

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3. BiggerPockets — Information and education app: Want to learn all there is to know about real estate? If so – then BiggerPockets is for you. The app is an educational resource packed full of all the knowledge you need to succeed in property management and real estate. Learn how to choose well and buy properties that will increase in value, and how to work on a property in order to get the best ROI. 4. Xome — App for property auctions: Xome provides easy access to real estate auctions, the majority of which are exclusive to the platform. The app is great for anyone looking to make an investment or to stay up to date on the market and get early access to properties before they reach the general market.

Further resources for your real estate toolbox So, there you have it.

Hopefully, by now your real estate digital toolbox should be well and truly stacked.

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