Buildium

We deferred the decision to adopt Buildium for 10 years too long

Comments: Our biggest challenge was gathering all of our data as it was stored in numerous systems. Buildium's deployment staff was excellent in helping us to get off the ground. We were live within 30 days of starting and have continued to add functionality throughout the year.

Pros:

We have been live for just over a year now. We use the applications, electronic rent collection (epay), accounting, Resident Center, and task tracking (maintenance) features of Buildium. Their automation has saved us so much time and money.

Cons:

Wishlist rather than cons as the system is very good: 1) multiple applications would be good based on the type of property rather than being limited to just 1 application, 2) the ability to move a tenant out and move a new tenant in on the same day, 3) better tenant communications (emailing and messaging) above and beyond what is built-in, we adopted Follow-up Boss for this, 4) API should be open to Zapier

Alternatives Considered: AppFolio Property Manager, Rentec Direct, Rent Manager and TenantCloud

Reasons for Choosing Buildium: We were so fragmented, although we still kept Rentec Direct for Off Market Listings

Switched From: Rentec Direct and QuickBooks Desktop

Reasons for Switching to Buildium: It was the best fit

The Best PM Software Solution

Comments: We have enlarged our client base with Buildium's features thanks to their focus on speed and accuracy with payments, reporting, and accounting ease.

Pros:

Online payments are a game-changer. Owner/tenant/HOA access allows each respective person the ability to view important reports and property status in real-time. The property database is completely searchable from anywhere on the site.

Cons:

The task feature is a bit wanting. It's good for what it is, but dedicated project management or to-do list applications work just as well or better in most cases.

Alternatives Considered: AppFolio Property Manager and Yardi Voyager

Reasons for Choosing Buildium: The dedicated property management features

Switched From: QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Buildium: It suited our company the most and its HOA features offered what we were looking for.

Very Good Property Management Software Option

Comments: Overall, I recommend this software to all of my property management clients who are looking for a new software. I just warn them to make sure it has all of the features needed and to check out the built in Apps to supplement features that may be missing. I definitely recommend for small growing PM firms who are cost conscious and don't meet the requirements for some of the other software.

Pros:

I like that Buildium is affordable and easy to use. I would also say they have better than average support for a PM software.

Cons:

It is not as customizable as other property management software, so it is important to review this software carefully before choosing it. It needs to be a good fit for your property management model.

Comments: I switched to Buildium from QuickBooks in July 2011 and will switch off on January 1, 2012. We manage about 100 single family properties that are owned by about 30 investors. Yes Buildium is easy. Yes it is simple but if you are in the business of managing properties for multiple owners it just doesn't do the job. First, there is no way to invoice an owner for repairs. Buildium says you should have enough in your reserve account to cover the bill. OK, that makes sense, but what if you don't? There is no way within the system to tell an owner about upcoming expenses. You have to use another accounting system (QuickBooks for me) to invoice and track receipts. Then you have to add the invoice and payment to Buildium so the owner's reports on the portal (a nice but rarely used feature) are complete. The ability to sort reports is nearly non-existent. Buildium says to down load the report to Excel and then sort. Trouble is, the Excel file has so many merged fields that you cannot sort a single column. It is taking me 15 minutes to find and remove all the merged header information before a simple sort can be done. If you select the entire sheet then un-merge the report becomes a mess. The ability to "find" is absolutely non-existent. If you get a check for $1,453.62 and need to know where to apply it, good luck my friend. You have to call the issuer and get the name of the property and unit. Receipts, statements and reports, which are generated as pdf, are all formatted differently. This means you have to have 3 different types of window envelopes on hand at all times. Buildium is "joined at the hip" with NELCO printing and I have not been able to find checks other than NELCO's that print correctly. Why is this a big deal? NELCO charges $0.35 a check while Costco charges $0.035 per per check. If Buildium is not getting commissions on the business they send to NELCO, they certainly should. The online help search feature is worthless. There is no content searching so whatever word you type in the search box shows every page that includes any of the searched words. Skip the search and go directly to their index. With a little effort you can find an answer. The support team is quite pleasant and responds quickly. They rarely, however, have a direct answer and absolutely refuse to ever confirm a feature, like sending a bill to an owner, is just not there. What they do is endlessly reply, "We don't understand your question, please clarify." I have no one to blame for selecting Buildium except myself. When I asked to be shown features in the online demo I was told to talk to sales. When I asked sales the same question they said to sign up for a demo. In summary Buildium is cheap and easy but of little substance.

Yair Hindin's Responses

Comments: There were some customer service challenges initially. The digital support wasn't addressing what I wanted and it may have been because I couldn't express it properly. A short phone call would likely have resolved in far less time.

Pros:

Ledgers are clear, easy to adjust, and helpful for tenants.

Cons:

At the plan we're on we don't speak to live people. I think that in this model everyone loses issues take 5x longer to resolve, the user gets frustrated and everyone's time is wasted.

Alternatives Considered: AppFolio Property Manager, Agora and Yardi Voyager

Reasons for Choosing Buildium: Wasn't robust enough and a bit hard to use.

Switched From: Innago

Reasons for Switching to Buildium: Was a better fit for what we needed- not too costly, and had the clarity and simplicity that we needed.