5 Free Property Management Softwares Worth Trying in 2019

Recent study indicates that home ownership rate in the US decreased to 64%, while rental vacancy rate fell down to nearly 7%. This means these is a lot of demand for rentals and property management. It is a good time to investigate or invest in a property management software or a solution to acquire, engage, and exit tenants.

Traditionally all this was done in person through books, and everyone was happy. But in today’s digital economy, tenants expect more from a $1 than ever. To keep your tenants happy, you will be required to give the best, so that in return you can increase your revenue. With software in place, there is a chance to reduce expenses and improve margins drastically.

(via Capterra)

What challenges should a property management solution solve?

While there are n numbers of challenges in a property management company, we have identified few requirements that should be present in a solution or solutions. They are

• Billing & Invoicing
• Commercial Properties
• Contact Management
• Credit Check
• Expense Management
• Insurance Management
• Landlord Database
• Late Fee Calculation
• Lease Management
• Maintenance Management
• Owner Portal
• Payment Processing
• Portfolio Management
• Rent Tracking
• Residential Properties
• Tax Management
• Tenant Database
• Tenant Portal
• Vacancy Tracking
• Website Management

Keeping these in mind, we picked 5 free solutions you should try. These are picked based on reviews and ratings given in Google, Finances Online, and Capterra.

5 Free Property Management Softwares

Cozy

This application is free for landlords to use. They only charge for Tenant screening reports, card payments, renter insurance, rent estimates, and express payouts. There is a blog on Captera about this software, but in 2019 they have transformed making it suitable for landlords and tenants. As a land lord feel free to travel to any part of this globe, and you will still be able to manage your property and get paid on time.  Firstly, this software will help you list your property that in turn will get your property some exposure and a possible tenant. Through cozy you now have an option to manage tenant applications, tenant profiles, analyze data to pick the right tenant, and finally letting your property to the right tenant.

The software does not leave you hanging here, you can now mange the rental agreement, setup payment options so that you get paid on time, send late fee charges to the tenant, manage expenses caused for maintaining the property, and finally get paid on time. Through this you can communicate with your tenants regarding any contractor visit for repair, ETA on any repairs, possible visit for property inspection, and lot more.

Finally, when the tenancy agreement is coming to an end, the software send reminders to your and your tenant for renewal. Revised rental rates can be added to the agreement, and any other details that will help keep existing tenant or get a new one.

While all this sounds interesting and tempting to try. Here are few things that this software cannot help you with; maintaining management reports, accounting reports, and more. The software is more tenant focused.  The rent takes long to credit to your bank account, the free version is slightly slow to operate, and finally their support is not the best.

 Website-> https://cozy.co/

Online Rental Property Manager (ORPM)

Manage your rental properties, units, leases, application and tenants with the help of this software. The application allows you to create applicant profile, save them, review them, and finally convert them into actual leases. Since this is web based, you do not need to worry about having a high configuration computer to run this app. More over you can list all your properties in real time, add their rental value, show if the property is occupied or not, and more.

You can communicate directly with your tenants or contractors from the app itself. Specifics about each unit can be added, and this is one of the differentiating factors of this app from other free software. The only problem with this app is it has a vague user manual that cannot be used for operating this app.

Website-> https://bigprof.com/appgini/applications/online-rental-property-manager

Rentec Direct

The software wants to give back something to the land lord or property owners, in terms of a free software for property management. The software helps owners manage their tenants by

• Tenant Credit Check
• Tenant Online Payments
• Tax Management for Tenant and Owner
• Tenant Management
• Tenant Portal
• Vacancy Management
• Website Management

The software is easy to use, and the best part is that you manage your website from this app itself. Your tenants get their own portal from where they can make payments, download receipts, send requests to the owner, and more. If your stuck or facing challenges with the software; don’t worry, they have an excellent customer support service.

All is good with this software, while reporting might be a little challenging as per the reviews it has. Another issue you might face is making HTML changes to the website, the free version might not be the best for doing this.

Website-> https://www.rentecdirect.com/

RentTracker

This is a fairly simple software that is free for upto 3 tenants. The best part about this is, its on cloud. Login from any device from any part of the world to manage your property. They provide an Android and IOS app for managing your property too. Some of the features include

• Contact Management
• Manage Commercial Properties
• Tenant and Owner Expense Management
• Landlord Database
• Lease Management
• Monthly Maintenance Management
• Portfolio Management
• Rent Tracking
• Residential Property Management
• Owner and Tenant Tax Management
• Tenant Database

The company is been around for a while(since 1999) and we could not find any negative reviews/comment about this software.

Website-> https://www.renttracker.com/

TenantCloud

This is a Saas application/cloud that can be accessed from any device from anywhere on the planet for managing a property. This acts as a mediator between a tenant, owner, and contractor. Owners can add upto 75 tenants, advertise upto 25 listings for free. While tenants can update their move-in movie-out pictures, add service requests, make maintenance payments, rent payments, and more. Finally, service providers/contractors can also access this to update their service requests. Some of their features are

• Tenant Credit Check
• Online Payments
• Tax Management
• Tenant Management
• Tenant Portal
• Vacancy management
• Website Management

Since it is free, they are some drawbacks you need to live with. For instance, they don’t have phone support, they don’t have a communicate through text option, and their overall interface is not the best. Otherwise the ratings and reviews of this software is on par with their competitors.

Website-> https://www.tenantcloud.com/

How to improve your brand as a property owner?

These softwares help you mange your property, but what should you actually do to build a positive reputation towards your name/property management company? Here are two things you should consider.

Maintenance- Make sure carpeting and mats are clean or new before the tenant goes into the property. A good feel and presentation of the property will keep your tenant’s feeling towards you positive.

Goodies- Thrown in some custom mats that have your name for free. This will remind your tenants about you from time to time, and tenant gets something for free.

Check out Capterra or finance online for identifying more such software for managing your property. Not all are free, nor do they have a trial. These 5 should suffice all your needs and should give you a hang of how-to mange your property with the help of a software.