Chosing a Property Management Software - Practical Issues

My family together owns a portofilio of about 500 properties. We are considering buying a property management software. We are sort of narrowing down on Yardi Voyager, Onesite and Appfolio. But we really have couple of practical concerns:-

1. How difficult is it to switch to another software vendor? We don't want to get into a situation where we buy one software and then realize its limitations as we expand our portfolio but then it is too difficult to switch to another vendor.

2. Is the cost justified? Isn't $40 per unit or so that Yardi and Onesite are asking a bit too expensive? Would they be helpful in realizing that much operational cost efficiencies and revenue generation to justify that cost?

What price would you guys be willing to pay on per unit basis?

Greatly appreciate your inputs on these aspects!!

My experience with Onesite and Yardi have both been great. They are both web based and very easy to navigate/learn. I work for a company with 36 properties and over 6000 units, we use Yardi Voyager. It's options are limitless and the home office can adjust limits for each property any time.

I don't know about AppFolio except they do offer a 30 minute online demo and a 30 day free trial, so you could always just try it to see if it meets your needs. If it doesn't I don't think you can go wrong with either Yardi or Onesite and are well worth the price.

I prefer Yardi! It is versatile and has endless customizing options. Love it. Onesite is also great, but I got spoiled using Yardi. Anonymous did an excellent job outlining your choices. I believe that investing in a sophisticated property management software system will streamline your sites' daily operations, which in turn will increase their productivity, enhance time management and can reduce cost of staff. With a good accounting software, you may not need as many staff members (and that may not be hat some people want to hear.)

Many thanks for your responses..

I understand the benefits of a property management software.. I am not looking for a comparison between Yardi / OneSite here..

But what I am trying is to somehow able to "quantify" and justify that expense.. make an objective, informed and rational choice..

So for that purpose I want to understand:-
1)Whether $40 per unit is justified? What is the upfont fees? What is the maximum per unit cost that you would want to pay? etc.
2) If I am not satisfied with a service is it too difficult to switch .. because in case it is too much headache, I want to be very careful before commiting to one of the vendors..

Would highly appreciate if you can throw more light on these aspects..

Cheers,
Alex

I would pay $40 per unit for Yardi. Once you start working out a deal with Yardi or Onesite, they'll let you know exactly what the upfront fees are. Any time you make a software change there will be problems, but the biggest push back you can avoid is push back from the staff. Make sure they buy into the change. Secondly, I think you can eliminate the need for some of the accounting people if you change to a property management software. So, depending on what you pay a regional accounting person, you can save that salary cost. As I alluded to before, no one admits this nor do they to hear it. I cannot tell you exactly what the total conversion costs will be for your company, but I can tell you that productivity increases greatly with a good software system in place. As far as not liking the software once you convert, I would advise you to have a designated support person to train your teams. I have heard from others on this site how much they like the guarantee offered by AppFolio. Training is really the key here.

Good afternoon Alex,

I just read over your post. My name is Casey Hadlock, I am account representative for OneSite. As mentioned you have many choices when it comes to a software solution. I would like to take time to learn more about you and your business. Email me at your convenience, [email protected]

Thanks, Casey

If you are also looking for a solution that allows you to integrate various services such as utility billing, resident screening, online applications, forms etc. Yardi plays well in this arena offering you the ability to chose your preferred vendors as Yardi integrates with a miltutude of vendors on an open platform. OneSite is a closed platform and will not offer you the same freedom of choice most of their services are in house and there are very little options for service providers outside of their offering.
If these are not important to you then both are good choices for a core platform.

We just chose to go with Entrata, Property Solutions new product the PM software is actually free right now. Something to look into. I also loved Appfolio but felt like Property Solutions offered more options for what we needed.

Speaking of Entrata... thought you should know: I have just a few hundred units under management. I just went through a month of wrangling with Property Solutions about Entrata. They're on a beta right now. Initially they hooked me with their open database, free base product, and good pricing on add-ons such as payment processing. After two weeks of waiting, they came back and said the beta is closed. I now have to sign up for an older legacy product that doesn't have full accounting, pay thousands to set up and migrate my data, and then hope Entrata actually works as performed when it is launched in another six months. They also informed me that they changed their mind about the product being free. For those who sign up in the first number of months, they would get it for free for life, but if not, it would cost me per unit to use the core product as well. So I said no problem, before I dump good money on the migration, put that in writing. They came back and said they wouldn't put the price guarantee in writing, nor would they put a guarantee of an open database in writing. I wanted the open database so I could design my own apps to work with the core product. So... no guarantees = bait and switch later. I would touch Entrata until they get their act together.

Hey guys, a lot of great conversation happening. I'm with Property Solutions, and I just wanted to clarify a few things. As our materials have expressed, Entrata is offered at zero cost, with no integration fees; however add-ons like payments or websites will still retain standard licensing fees. That said, Entrata is currently in beta and still accepting beta clients. Certain properties will be more suited for beta than others, and we place certain limitations to ensure that beta clients have the best experience possible - it's not an attempt to be exclusionary to the market. Thanks for your comments, and we're in the process of implementing internal improvements to better serve companies through the duration of their beta inquiry. I'd be happy to help answer any questions, just send me a message.

Hello all! After 20 years in prop mgmt spent learning and bits and pieces of what seemed like every software solution in the market, I am so very glad that I gave Appfolio a try! Its been a godsend and has revolutionized and simplified my workload over the past 3 years and continues to get better and better.

So any update on Entrata? I just had a veteran manager with Texas Apartment Association say she thought Entrata was the best thing out there. Any suggestions for a property owner buying his first small apartment complex?