Property Management Systems

What are property management systems?
Property management systems feature software that helps building managers and landlords maintain their portfolio of real estate properties. This software addresses both tenant- and building-related matters, and makes property management systems applicable to a wide range of properties such as apartment buildings, condominiums, single-family homes, retail shopping centers, and vacation rentals.

Property management software features
The software for a property management system includes modules that address four primary property-related issues::

• Tenant - Track current and previous tenant details, including contact information, payment history, vehicles, and incidents.
• Real estate - Manage information for each building and unit. Track data points such as mortgage payments, improvements, appliance purchases, repair history and unit condition.
• Income and expenses - Keep a log of incoming payments from tenants and expenses related to managing and marketing your properties. The software should organize this information in a way that makes it easy to prepare your records at tax time.
• Reporting - All software will offer some level of reporting on income, rental records, and schedules. Take the time to view the specific reports you need most often. Also, check that data can be easily exported to Excel if you need to manipulate the data further.

Forms and templates
Some property management software also provides templates so you can auto-generate forms and letters. These can range from rental applications and late fee reminders for tenants to maintenance notification letters to vendors.

User interface
While vendors may offer very similar sets of features, each will have a different way of doing so.

Take the time to compare the user interface across the programs. Start with online demonstrations and then see if you can get trial copies of the software to test. Go through the your most common tasks, like entering payments or creating unit reports, to see how easy the software is to use. The best programs will be intuitive to use from the beginning.

Evaluating vendors
In addition to evaluating the programs, get a sense for the company producing the software. You'll want top-notch support and a program that will be maintained and updated over time. To get a sense for a company's commitment to the product, check their release history. A series of recent upgrades is a pretty good signal that the company will continue to commit resources to improving its software in the future.

ASP vs. hosted solutions
An important decision to make when choosing property management software is where you want the software hosted. An internally hosted solution that runs on your computers gives you the greatest control over your software. However, it can take considerable expertise and effort to maintain. In addition, keeping the data in-house gives you the responsibility of making regular backups in case of a system crash.

ASP (application service provider) solutions are hosted by the provider, instead -- your staff accesses the software and data through a web browser or specialized client software. The main advantage of ASP solutions is that your information can be accessed from multiple locations without significant investment in networking technology. In addition, ASP vendors work to ensure that your information will be kept secure and available. However, the biggest downside is that it requires an active Internet connection.

• Does the software run on my platform?
• How many properties and individual units do I need to track?
• How many people will need to access the software simultaneously?
• How easy is it to enter rent payments?
• Does the software handle late fees in a way that works with my business?
• Who will be using the software? Do I need to restrict their access?
• Do I want the ability to auto-generate forms and letters?
• Does the software need to integrate with accounting software?
• Is the user interface self-explanatory, easy to use?
• Are the reports easy to understand? Can I easily generate the specific reports I need?

Pricing
Software pricing varies significantly from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. While the standard method of pricing is for a general user license, some vendors will license their software on a per-unit basis.

• Make sure the software handles late fee assessment in the manner you need.
• Don't pay for more features than you need. Your needs for advanced features and automation will vary quite a bit if you manage 25 vs. 500+ units.
• If multiple people will be accessing the software, make sure you can restrict access as necessary.

Search by State

Mentioned In...

"BuyerZone is the sort of site that the Internet seems designed for... an amazing service." Read more...