Your property management system is the command center of your property business. It’s a set of tools that work together to organize, streamline, and grow your business—and enable property managers, owners, tenants, and vendors alike to come together on one platform.
This guide will compare eight of the top property management systems available in 2024 to help you find the right one for your business
Why Are Property Management Systems Important?
Property management systems give property owners and managers the tools to grow their business in the most efficient way possible. Here are a few reasons how:
Automate Redundant Tasks
Small but important tasks such as paying vendors, collecting bills, and sending rent payment reminders can pile up quickly. Rather than setting up a property manager to be a bottleneck, a property management system can complete critical tasks automatically, giving property managers and owners additional time and resources to work on building their business.
Improve Communication
Jumping from multiple text conversations and email threads is a surefire way to lose important details. Property management systems can provide a centralized channel of communication to engage with all your stakeholders in one platform, so that you have a full view of every conversation and follow-up on important issues that arise.
Utilize Data to Grow Your Business
You don’t necessarily need more data, you need better data. Whether it’s getting a quick pulse on your revenue numbers or seeing what payments you owe vendors, it’s important that you have accurate and trustworthy data to help you inform ways to push the business forward.
Common Property Management System Features to Consider
Before we run through some of the best property management systems on the market, let’s draw up a shopping list of features to look out for. Here are some of the key features that differentiate the best systems from the rest.
Maintenance Requests
Every maintenance request, whether it’s a complex HVAC repair or a basic plumbing fix, should be organized and documented. But it can become a juggling act of tracking timelines, paying vendors, and prioritizing urgent requests.
A reliable property management system should handle maintenance requests, facilitate vendor payments, and help you prioritize and address critical requests, seamlessly, and in a timely manner. An efficient way to record and manage maintenance requests is key and should include a way for tenants to submit work requests, attach images, and see the status of every request. It should allow you to manage requests at scale, as well, and ensure vendors are paid accordingly.
Automatic Notifications
Automating key notifications can help prevent long email threads and text exchanges. Automated notifications can remind tenants of upcoming rent payments, maintenance updates, and even updates regarding their lease renewals.
Accounting and Online Payments
Accurate bookkeeping is essential for any business, but not all accounting software is built to tackle the unique needs of property management. Purpose-built accounting software can help automate the financial management process, reduce errors, save time, and give you better control over your finances.
Online payments make it easy to collect rent or association fees automatically, and pay vendors while recording everything into your accounting system. A comprehensive property management system should provide features that allow you to manage rent due dates effectively and notify tenants in advance of upcoming bills.
Tenants are more likely to pay their bills on time with automatic online payments—and those payments deposit into your bank account digitally, eliminating the need for manual deposits or processing.
Rental Listing Management and Marketing
To minimize vacancies, you should be able to attract a high volume of high-quality applicants. A property management system can streamline the syndication process by uploading your property to major listing sites such as Apartments.com, Apartment List, Zillow, and Craigslist and manage the showing and application process.
The right software can filter out unqualified applicants with customizable applications, while reducing the time it takes for your ideal applicants to move from showing to signing.
The best systems can help boost your brand, as well, with website builders that include design templates specific for property businesses. They make it easy to upload your available listings, accept rental applications, and communicate with residents, owners, and vendors via their communication portals.
Tenant Screening
Comprehensive screening is important for finding the most qualified tenants, and helps minimize the risk of evictions or late rent payments. Your system must allow for background checks, giving you access to full credit, criminal, and eviction data. The best systems allow you to set custom requirements, like minimum credit score for each property, so you can filter out applicants that don’t qualify quickly.
Rental Applications
Rental applications identify the most qualified tenants by collecting information that determines whether or not they are a good match for your property. The process should be easy for applicants, and for property managers to sort through them quickly. Good property management systems enable you to create customizable application forms that capture detailed tenant data, such as employment history, income verification, rental history, and references.
Rental Document Management
Leases, rental agreements, maintenance records, financial statements, and legal documents should be stored securely in one place. Rental document management should keep all your important records organized, secure, and easy to access anytime.
The best property management systems have centralized storage, which eliminates the need for paperwork and the risk of documents being tampered with, lost, or damaged. It allows for document sharing and collaboration, making it easy for property managers, tenants, vendors or any authorized user to access and share documents—or even request signatures in real time.
Seamless Integrations
A property management system is more than just a piece of software. It’s an ecosystem tailored to the needs of your business, both today and in the future.
The software should be flexible enough to keep pace with your business as it changes. That means the ability to connect your central property management system with other software you’re using or plan to use.
It also helps if the system provider offers a robust selection of integrations, like the Buildium Marketplace, that plug into your existing software. For instance, if you need to set up virtual tours, Buildium® integrates with Tenant Turner®, a specialized showings and leasing solution, to make it happen.
The 8 Best Property Management Systems in 2024
We’ve rounded up some of the best property management systems that excel in different aspects of the business. The method for selecting the best systems is by comparing and contrasting key criteria such as feature richness, scalability, customizability, pricing, support, and more. Let’s dive right in.
1. Buildium: A Great All-in-One Property Management System
Buildium is a comprehensive all-in-one property management system that serves businesses of all sizes. Buildium excels in handling several portfolio types, whether that’s single-family units, multifamily rental properties, HOAs, community associations, or a mix.
Features
Every feature is designed to simplify the lead-to-lease cycle—from accounting, to maintenance tracking and online marketing.
Buildium’s key features include:
- Work order request management, with the ability for tenants to submit requests, property managers to assign vendors, track the progress of work, and connect jobs and vendor profiles to invoices and ledgers in Buildium’s accounting system
- Online marketing through a free website and listing syndication, to ensure you’re getting a high volume of high quality applicants
- Automated electronic payments, a property management-specific accounting system, automatic bank reconciliation, tax prep, and 1099 eFiling
- Lead-to-lease tools that take your prospective tenants from application to tenant screening to signed lease
- A dedicated Resident Center and Owner Portal for real-time communication, automated alerts, and access to important leasing documents and updates
- A mobile app for owners (available on the Apple App Store and Google Play) and a Resident Center app (Apple App Store, Google Play) that allow you, your tenants, and your owners to text, pay, and work on the go
- Key performance reports via a suite of reporting tools, as well as Analytics & Insights
- A large and growing roster of partner integrations in Buildium Marketplace with proven digital solutions that integrate seamlessly with Buildium without any additional code
- An open API for an added layer of customization that lets you link Buildium with your other business software and support your specific workflows
Pricing
Buildium offers three tiers of pricing. All plans include:
- Accounting
- Maintenance
- Task Management
- Violations
- Online Portals
- Resident & Board Member Communications
The three tiers are customized to meet the needs of property management businesses in different phases of growth:
- Essential: Starting at $55/month, this plan includes Buildium’s core features, geared toward property management companies looking for accounting and task management tools.
- Growth: Starting at $174/month, this plan is for property managers looking to grow without worrying about scaling costs. It includes reduced incoming EFT, unlimited eSignatures, and actionable insights in Analytics Hub.
- Premium: Starting at $375/month, this plan is for property management firms who want to build more automation into their workflows and increase efficiencies. It includes everything in Growth, unlimited incoming EFT (fees waived), plus access to Buildium’s Open API and Priority Support
2. Propertyware: Software to Customize Your Property Management Systems
Propertyware® is a fully customizable property management tool that enables property managers to control every aspect of their portfolio. It excels in serving portfolios with single-family homes.
Features
Propertyware offers a wide selection of tools to handle accounting, maintenance, lead-to-lease, multi-location management, vendor credentials, utility and bill management, and owner and resident insurance.
Although it takes time and experience to set up, Propertyware’s bread and butter is its customization—fully customizable fields, dashboards, and reports are extremely useful for experienced property management companies with unique needs.
They also have an open API that allows you to plug into other property management apps, or build your own and connect it to their Propertyware dashboard.
Pricing
Propertyware has three pricing tiers: Basic, Plus, and Premium. Basic starts at $1 per unit per month, with a $250 minimum. Plus starts at $1.50, with a $350 minimum and Premium starts at $2 with a $450 minimum. All plans charge 2x the monthly subscription price for implementation.
3. ResMan: A Platform for Affordable Housing and Multifamily Property Management Systems
Designed for property managers, investors, and owners in the multifamily and affordable housing market, ResMan® combines management tools with a suite of marketing and investment features.
Features
ResMan offers comprehensive accounting, budgeting, maintenance, and reporting features designed for multifamily property management. They also offer vacancy advertising, tenant screening, and service portals.
Its biggest strength is its simplicity, especially if you have a smaller portfolio size. They also cater to affordable housing portfolios, where ResMan includes compliance tools such as HUD certification validation and tax credit programs.
Pricing
There’s no pricing information provided on ResMan’s site at this time. You’ll have to contact the sales team to receive a custom quote.
4. LeadSimple: Purpose-Built Software for CRM
LeadSimple® is a purpose-built customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed for property managers. It centralizes your operations, sales, and important workflows to manage leads and convert them to your clients.
LeadSimple excels in its automation features, which speeds up day-to-day tasks and stores digital records of your leads. It’s one massive database of your leads and customers, or a single source of truth for your sales and marketing teams. Even if your staff and team roles and responsibilities change, lead generation won’t suffer.
With LeadSimple, you can store customer profiles of your existing clients to coordinate outreach automatically.
LeadSimple is a Buildium Marketplace partner. The two property management systems integrate seamlessly to help you sync your data and coordinate your communication with ease.
Features
LeadSimple’s CRM platform allows you to:
- automate your sales and lead nurturing
- use pre-made templates to help close deals more quickly
- share all updates, tasks, and deadlines automatically
- use a client communication portal that stores all your emails in one place
- view sales tasks, lead details and workflows from anywhere with the LeadSimple mobile app
- forecast, measure, and hit your targets with a full view of your leads and their individual needs
- access a workflow process tool to systemize all your tasks and projects in one place
Pricing
LeadSimple currently offers two pricing options; Growth/CRM and Operations. Growth/CRM is intended specifically for sales functions and starts at $99 per month. The plan covers:
- Two users ($30 per additional)
- One pipeline ($30 per additional)
- Every additional phone number is $4 per month
- 5 cents per minute for phone calls after the first 250 minutes
- 2.5 cents per text sent
The Operations plan is designed for larger companies with features for their whole business, both sales and operations. It has fewer restrictions than the Growth plan and begins at $1.35 per door per month with a minimum base price of $200 (150 doors included). The plan gives you access to:
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited pipelines
- Unlimited process types
- $4 per month per texting phone number
- 5 cents per call minute after the first 500 minutes
- 2.5 cents per text
- Process management module
- Property management software integrations (integrated with Buildium)
LeadSimple currently offers a 14-day free trial to help you get started.
5. PropertyMe: A Platform to Manage Standard Workflows and Day-to-Day Tasks
PropertyMe® is a property management solution that focuses on accounting and tenant-owner communication. Their tools are designed to simplify a handful of standard property management workflows.
Features
PropertyMe includes several accounting features. The system allows you to process single or bulk disbursements with different payment options with automated reminders of when they’re due. Bank account reconciliation is automated and autopay is available for administrative and admin fees.
They also have simple reporting tools that help manage your sale, allowing you to create sales agreements and store receipts.
PropertyMe provides supplemental features including basic listing, inspection, and bill management features. You also store files, statements, and bank transaction data safely in its file portal.
Pricing
PropertyMe’s pricing is split into three tiers: Basic, Standard, and Premium. Each tier is charged based on the number of properties in your portfolio and the charge is calculated in 100-property increments.
The Basic plan starts at $150 per month for 100 or fewer properties, plus a $900 onboarding fee. The plan includes most of the features discussed above, such as trust accounting and reporting, importing transaction files, messages, job and inspection management, and mobile app access.
The Standard plan starts at $270 per month for up to 200 properties (larger portfolios will cost slightly less per property), plus the same $900 onboarding fee. Beyond the features included in the Basic plan, the Standard plan also includes recurring invoices, bank feeds, an automation studio, more cloud storage, a business insights dashboard and report, and key management.
The Premium plan starts at $360 per month for up to 200 properties (larger portfolios will cost slightly less per property), plus the $900 onboarding fee. Besides the Standard plan’s features, you’ll also have access to PropertyMe API and Customer Success Manager service.
Note that the onboarding fee jumps up to $1,348 for when you onboard over 500 properties and $1,800 when you onboard over 1,000 properties.
6. Rentec Direct: Tools to Link Your Payment and Accounting Systems
Rentec Direct™ is a property management system that focuses on accounting, work order and vendor management, and listing tools. Designed for businesses of various sizes, Rentec Direct combines a set of standard accounting features with other familiar management tools.
Features
With Rentec Direct, you’ll get features that include an owner portal, work order management and vendor payment system, and leasing features like listing syndication, electronic signatures, tenant screening, lead tracking, and a website builder.
Rentec Direct includes accounting features where users can track and manage their portfolio from the platform. You can import data into Quickbooks, and generate customizable reports. You can also set up a general ledger and trust accounts and sync transactions between Rentec Direct and your bank.
Their accounting software allows you to:
- Set up both one-time and recurring, automatic payments by credit card, debit card, or ACH (credit and debit cards have a 2.95% transaction fee)
- Pay rent through a dedicated tenant portal
- Set full or partial payment schedules for tenants
- Create multiple merchant accounts to stay organized
- Have same-day access to payments, depending on your bank
- Offer tenants rent reporting through a RentReporters partner integration
Pricing
Rentec Direct has two pricing plans, Rentec Pro for landlords and investors and Rentec PM for property managers. Both are based on the number of units managed.
The base price for less than 10 units is $45 per month, or $41 if you choose an annual subscription. You can use the pricing calculator on their site to determine the cost of a subscription based on the number of units you enter.
Rentec Direct includes a mobile app available on the Apple App Store and Google Play with online rent payment functionality.
7. RealPage Commercial Platform: Software Specifically for Commercial Property Management Systems
RealPage Commercial Platform® connects the middle and back office operations of your commercial property management business. Built for property management companies, owners, managers, developers, and general partners, its primary purpose is to take the complexity out of managing commercial assets.
Features
RealPage Commercial Property Management’s key feature is to manage daily operations, reporting and analyzing complex leases. This includes lease boilerplates for adding new leases with data governance, on-demand views of lease histories, and amendment features for accurate tracking of lease lifecycles. They also cover common area maintenance (CAM) recoveries with their proprietary billing engine.
The Financial Suite is an enterprise-level accounting software with eight key features, including:
- Corporate accounting: enterprise features designed to accommodate complex businesses
- Property accounting: a 360 degree back-office accounting solution
- Financial close management: automate the entire process of tying out your books
- Spend management: manage procure-to-pay easily with customer approval workflows, vendor management, and invoice matching
- Job cost: have full visibility into job costs and keep building and renovation costs on track
- Budgeting: reduce costs with forecasting and reporting
- Financial reporting: customizable reports that render financial and operational reports
- SmartsourceTM accounting: get access to accounting experts to help with training and strategic initiatives
The Commercial Reporting features provide accurate and robust reports, with customizable dashboards for every stakeholder in your business. They also offer portfolio management. Their proprietary feature, RealScore, allows you to measure and rank your properties based on internal benchmarking.
Pricing
There is no pricing information available at this time. Contact the sales team for more information.
8. eUnify: Established Technology for Managing Your HOA Management Systems
Founded in 2001, eUnify® is an established property management system focused on HOAs. Their collection of management tools helps HOAs and HOA management companies streamline their operations.
Features
eUnify offers features for both self-managed associations and management companies.
They offer three portals for homeowners, boards, and owners, which lets you handle architectural requests, custom workflows, resident requests, violation tracking, and work order management.
eUnify also provides an accounting system for your general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. It allows you to send automated notifications, custom letters, and eVoting that helps cut costs of holding in-person elections.
Pricing
Like many of the other options on this list, eUnify does not lay out pricing details on their site clearly. You’ll need to reach out directly to get a quote.
Which Property Management System Is Best for You?
Choosing the best property management system comes down to two things: what kind of properties you manage and what features will make the biggest impact. We’ve named plenty of solutions that will help cover all your bases and help your property business be more efficient.
However, all the tools have to work together to help your business run smoothly and more efficiently. That is why a comprehensive, all-in-one solution is usually the best way to go.
With transparent pricing and a free 14-day trial (with no credit card required), we recommend giving Buildium’s property management system a try. It’s risk-free and purpose-built to help property businesses of all sizes grow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What features should I look for in property management systems?
It’s important that you start by identifying your needs, prioritizing them, then making sure the system you choose fits your business. Generally, the most critical features to look out for are maintenance request management, automatic notifications, online payments, seamless integrations with other software, rental applications tools, and tenant screening.
Are there different types of property management systems?
Yes! Different property management systems focus on different aspects of your business. Some might be more sales-focused while others may be better at automation. However, an all-in-one solution such as Buildium can help cover all the bases and save you the hassle of having to jump between different platforms.
Can property management systems integrate with other tools or platforms?
Not all property management systems are easy to integrate with other tools. The best ones not only have this functionality, but also make finding other compatible software simple through a list or marketplace of technology partners. It’s important to note that each system’s integration offerings may differ, so check if the platform you’re looking for integrates with the software you’re currently using today (ie: accounting, CRM, etc).
What is the cost associated with property management systems?
The cost of property management systems can vary depending on the software itself, as well as the size of your business and the functionalities you’re looking for. The majority of systems charge a subscription fee that varies by the number of units managed, features and add-ons, implementation and onboarding, customizations, integrations, and the level of support. To get the clearest picture of the value you’ll get from a property management system, we recommend exploring solutions that offer a free trial.
Can property management systems help with rent collection and financial tracking?
Yes, the top property management systems streamline both rent collection and financial tracking. They streamline the collection process by allowing tenants to pay their bills online and send automated payment reminders, while synchronizing the data with your accounting software. Sometimes, accounting, financial reporting, and rent collection software are all connected within a single platform. This creates a smoother experience for property management teams and a clear view of their finances across their entire business.
