There are a great number of options available when it comes to property management software: Buildium, Appfolio, and Yardi, to name a few that come to mind.
Though these software packages do typically deliver a rich set of features for property management companies, they have another common trait: They strive to be one-stop-shop solutions for property management — and that’s not a good thing.
You might think, “Awesome, that means the software suits most (if not all) of my property management needs“. However, here is why using “one-stop-shop” software for property management is a bad idea:
You’ll need to shape your business to fit the software (instead of the other way around)
“One-stop-shop” software promises to take you from start to finish in your property management, whilst addressing your every property management need.
The catch is: This software is built on one universal set of rules, and you’ll need to adjust your business processes to fit the way the software works.
Now, if your property management company is young, with no well-established processes, it will be easy to change/drop them in favor of the software processes.
However, if you are a company with a substantial amount of units under management, it probably means that your company has a set of established processes that help you run your business smoothly.
Switching to one-stop-shop software means dropping or modifying your process to fit property management software features, rules, and limitations.
This means that suddenly, the software is dictating how you will need to run your business instead of working for you the way you want it to.
Forget about innovation
Once you commit to “one-stop-shop” software, you won’t have much wiggle room for trying things differently.
You can’t innovate in your niche market of property management, because the software you use does not support such flexibility. What you can and can’t do as a property management company revolves around the feature set of the “one-stop-shop” property management software you choose.
And let’s face it: In the end, doing things differently is how you stand out from competition.
Switching to another system is pretty difficult
Once you adopt a “one-stop-shop” solution for your property management company, porting the data from one software to another is a very labor-intensive and error-prone endeavour.
The problem is that the more property a company has under management, the more effort it takes to port that data to a new software program. On top of that, all the staff will need to be trained on how to use the new property management software.
“One-stop-shop” models couple the software package with a property management company’s operations so tightly that modifying the operations to fit another property management package becomes unviable.
One last thought: Do you think Buildium, AppFolio, and Yardi run their businesses using “one-stop-shop” software? Probably not.
That is why New Age Rentals uses multiple software packages that can be tailored to your needs, and deliver the flexibility and room for innovation that allow your business to thrive.
