Buildium vs PropertyWare
Steve Crossland
Broker/Owner
Property Management: http://www.CrosslandProperties.com
Tim Hendricks
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Sanford Collins
Hi Steve,
I've used both. Propertyware for 2.5 years and Buildium for the last year. Below are my experiences & thoughts.
Buildium Pros:
-It's easy to use. All of our team members pick it up with minimal training (including our non-techy handymen). I did no training at all, just started using it.
-It's cheap compared Propertyware. We pay $3,780/year for the 500 unit plan.
-The 1099 service is super easy, but it's hard copy only. No electronic 1099s. It does cost extra but well worth it.
-Accepts tenant payments via credit card and allows you to set an admin fee that's income to you above the transaction fee paid to the cc processing company (Propertyware didn't when I used it, but they might now)
-I like their customer support team. They're friendly and helpful. They do a good job following up on open and escalated tickets.
Buildium Cons:
-Buildium does not accept owner contributions via ACH (Propertyware does). This is pretty annoying.
-Does not have custom fields.
-The interface is slower than most websites. I click and wait a lot.
-Buildium does not prorate rent in the last month of a lease. We have to manually delete the full month charge and enter the prorated amount.
-Buildium does not charge the Tenant Ledger when a check is cut to pay a tenant charge, so we have to manually charge the Tenant ledger. Property always you to cut a check and allocate all or a portion of the charge to Tenant/Owner as needed.
-If a tenant pays advanced rent, Buildium will calculate a mgmt fee on the entire amount and distribute all of it to owner even though the rent charge has not hit the ledger. You have to manually override the commission calc and the owner draw if that is your preference.
-When you create a bill in Buildium, it does not hold back the funds from the owner draw. You have to cut a check. So, holding back funds for unpaid invoices is a manual process during the monthly owner draw. Also, when an owner advances us a few thousand dollars for repairs, we have to raise the property reserve to keep from giving the funds back during the owner draw process. It would be much cleaner to simply create an estimated bill.
-When Buildium runs commission calculation, it looks at a period of time and calculates the commission on all rent received during that time. If you manually run a commission calc on one property (say for a late rent collected) and subsequently run the commission calc on the period that covers that one rent, Buildium will charge the commission again. So, when we receive a late rent after our owner draw, we do not calculate commission on that late rent, we simply send the owner draw less what our commission will be when we run the commission calc in the following month.
-On the tenant portal, tenants are given an option to opt in to SMS cummunications. We don't communicate with tenants via SMS and Buildium cannot turn off this option on the tenant portal. So we get the occasional tenant that signs up, then tries to text us, but we never get the message.
-Tenants cannot "schedule" online payments for leases that are in "future" lease status. We allow new tenants to pay their security deposit and first month's rent via their portal before they move in. While their lease is in "future" status vs. "active" status the portal offers them the option for "one time payment now" or "schedule a payment for a future date". However, if they select "schedule a payment for a future date" the payment gets hung. No one is notified, the transaction doesn't process and nothing happens until we or the tenant notices the outstanding balance that the tenant thought they paid.
-Owner statements can be sent to only one email address. If you have two owners, say a husband and wife, you have to pick one that will receive the monthly statement (an all email owner communications). Propertyware allows multiple.
-We cannot see tenant or owner bank account numbers in Buildium. I guess this is for security reasons, but if a number is entered incorrectly by us, a tenant or an owner, I can't verify it and the ACH processor won't verify it for us.
-Content of emails sent from Buildium is not retained in the system. However, we were able to set up an auto bcc so every email sent from Buildium is bcc'd to a gmail account we set up to retain the communications.
-The rent roll report calculates monthly rent incorrectly when you have a future rent hike on the lease. The rent roll report combines the current rent and the future higher rent reflecting a rent of approximately double the actual rent.
-The Buildium owner portal is okay, but has a default Financial Statement tab that has only a monthly view (1st-30th). This creates confusion for our owners because it does not align with our monthly owner statement which usually cover the 13th of the previous month to the 12th of the current month.
Buildim Other:
-Note that we do not use the Buildium website, nor do we use Buildium for marketing our properties, so I can't comment on that.
Propertyware Pros:
-Custom fields are great. I used them way more than I thought I would and they're useful when running reports.
-Auto email functionality is good. I used it for 60 day notices to owners & tenants, daily emails to late rent tenants, and auto emails to owners when a work order was submitted on their property. Buidlium does not have this.
-Reports - There's a lot of flexibility in the reports you can custom create. Buildium reports are all static and you cannot customize the content or layout. I often download Buildium reports in a csv file and manipulate with Excel pivot tables and vlookups to get what I need. That's not needed in Propertyware.
-When you enter a bill, Propertyware holds back funds from the owner draw. I used to set up future bills when spreading a leasing fee over 3 months. I could set it and forget it. Propertyware handled the accounting after that.
-Owners can make ACH contributions via the owner portal.
-A lot of owners commented that they like the Propertyware owner portal.
-Generally speaking, Propertyware is more robust than Buildium. When used correctly, you'll have a lot less "work arounds" then in Buildium.
Propertyware Cons:
-Propertyware has a steep learning curve. It's fine for people that are very tech savy, but I wouldn't call it user friendly. I spent a good amount of time going through online trainings and the manuals. I couldn't imagine my current team getting up to speed on it in a reasonable time.
-It's expensive. I don't remember the exact price, but I think it was ~ 3x the cost of Buildium.
-Customer support is pretty bad. I really didn't like calling and often had to follow up on unresolved issues.
My Preference:
I used Propertyware for 2.5 years, taking a new PM company from 0 to 70 properties. There was a lot of functionality that I hadn't tapped into yet. For a large or fast growing company, I think Propertyware is the better choice. If I have a small company that isn't growing (100 units or less), I'd prefer Buildium because I'd know the portfolio well enough that I wouldn't need to rely as heavily on the system. We currently manage 425 units in Buildium and I have no desire to change systems because the transition with our staff would be a nightmare. But, if I could snap my fingers and have Propertyware fully implemented and the team trained, I'd prefer Propertyware. That said, if we ever consider a new system, I'll look closely at Rent Manager. It seems to have some great features.
Glenn Lehman
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Peter Lohmann
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