By Rick Pridemore
Mr. Pridemore is currently a REIA board member, and has been a real estate investor since 1989. Over almost 2 decades he has developed vacant land, rented single family dwellings, and built new homes (both site built and modular.) He has also traveled the country conducting training seminars and attending
trade shows. Rick is a licensed real estate agent, specializing in both high end and investment properties.
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I am wondering which property management software most people are using and why. I have been hearing a lot about Tenant Pro but how does it stack up against all the others.
The decision of whether you should use a property management software package shouldn't be made lightly. Once you start logging all of your information into a program, you will be very reluctant to switch to something else at a later date if you become disenchanted with what you are using, especially if that means losing all of the work that you have invested up to that point. Generally, most of the landlords that I have talked to agree that a property management program is more work than it's worth until you have 10 or more properties. Especially if you're a new landlord, it's a good idea to do things manually for a while and come up with a system that works for you. Then, when your manual tracking system is unable to keep up, investigate the various software programs to see which one allows you to continue operating the way you like. The hallmark of any good software package is its ability to simplify the user's job, being flexible enough to adapt to your way of doing things. Steer clear of programs that seem inflexible or force you to do things the way it wants to and not the way you want to. Some choices include iRealtyManager, Quicken Rental Property Manager, and Tenant Pro. Tenant Pro is one of the more expensive packages, but its 14 years of development has resulted in a very polished and robust package. Most of the software companies offer a trial period, which I would highly suggest that you take advantage of. During the trial, make sure that you contact their tech support and see how responsive they are. An unresponsive tech support department is a deal breaker for me. Some features to look for when evaluating a property management software package:
- Tenant tracking - this may seem obvious, buy some software packages track just the tenant's name and address. Make sure that it tracks other details, too. General comments, reminders, the tenant's photo, identification and bank account numbers, etc. Ideally, the software will allow you to add custom fields so that you can add specific information that you like to track.
- Property tracking - besides the basics like size, rooms, price, and exterior photo, the ability to add interior photos before every tenant moves in, photos when they move out (to document damage), taxes, insurance, rent history, mortgage information, payments, etc.
- Automated check writing - make sure that you can print checks automatically, based upon a payment schedule that you set up. This eliminates trying to remember who gets paid how much and when.
- Ability to export finances to a file - makes reporting to your accountant much easier.
- Automatic notice generation - the software should automatically generate personalized late notices, statements, etc.
- Automated back ups - make sure that the program will automatically back up your data at a predetermined schedule. Nothing is worse than losing all of your data!
The bottom line - use technology to make your life easier, not just for the sake of using it. Most landlords that use a property management package agree that the time spent learning to use a program efficiently doesn't pay until you have 10 or more properties.
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