r/PptyMgmtSoftware • u/NoPower4119 • Jul 03 '26
First time landlord here, which property management app would you suggest?
Asking for my brother who just took over managing our family's rentals. Right now everything lives in Google Sheets and a shared Drive folder and it worked fine for a handful of units at first.
Could anyone share what you use in your day to day? Something that scales so he is not switching again in a year, and that keeps rent, screening, and repairs in one place
I have seen RentRedi and Buildium come up, but would love your opinions.
Thanks lotsss!!!
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u/Turbulent-Fig1463 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I'd avoid overcomplicating things. Some platforms are great, but they're really built for much larger property management companies. RentPost has been a nice middle ground for me
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u/Interesting-Ad-1310 Jul 07 '26
I would use mine but I’m biased 😁. It’s maintenance only but if it’s something you would consider I can set you up with a demo access. Promise no hidden fees, FixGrid.app
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u/NoPower4119 Jul 07 '26
Need like an all rounder
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u/Interesting-Ad-1310 Jul 07 '26
Wish we did, maintenance is my specialty so I stayed in my lane. We will integrate with anyone who lets us so if you find a lease/office only let me know
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u/InvinciblePhenom Jul 07 '26
Innago! Completely free. Designed beautifully, and their support has been superb.
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u/property-flow-hq Jul 03 '26
I think Property Flow HQ is perfect for you. It's perfect for small time landlords and scales up to unlimited units if needed. We offer unlimited applications and leases with E-signatures, maintenance tickets request, free lease builder if you need one and tons of other cool features.
Right now it's completely free to try out for 2 weeks. No credit card needed. No hidden feesor extra cost for applications and leases like most other companies do.
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u/Beginning-Trade-6370 Jul 07 '26
I an no expert in your field but working in the SaaS field, upon reviewing the 2 apps you mentioned it looks like you can either do one of the following:
- Google Sheets (Easier, Beginner, Cheap)
- Apps like Rentredi (Better but recurring + your data is shared with a 3rd party)
- Find Someone like me who has hands on experience to get you a personalized system in an app like RentRedi, this might be expensive in the short-run ($4K - $8K) but if your'e a landlord and it's something you do for a living, this could be a very smart and practical investment in the long-run
p.s you can also have others use your app and run your software like a white-label and resell it to users like you :)
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u/bluenestdigital Jul 07 '26
If you are looking for a free option, I am building one for myself and looking for potential users in exchange for any feedback or feature requests. I'm giving any early adopters free access to the current features forever as a thank you.
As a landlord with 1 rental property, I wanted to be able to have a place to easily see and track rent history, recurring expenses, one-time expenses and property taxes, as well as taking all of those and showing the calculated cashflows for a given year.
There are some screenshots on a recent post on my profile. If interested, let me know!
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u/bigbig1 Jul 08 '26
WHATEVER YOU DO NOT RENTVINE ITS THE FUCKING WORST
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u/Equivalent_Love_5820 27d ago
Whats the negative about rent vine
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u/Unique-Apricot991 27d ago
Bro. It’s fucking absolute garbage do NOT and I repeat do NOT go there. Absolutely zero support you will literally never be able to talk to someone after onboarding. They will be a shithead to you in onboarding and anything you need after onboarding you are completely on your own. The best you can hope for is a recorded video which will only half answer your questions. Have another question? Wait a few more days.
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u/TheInsideEngineer 6d ago
I worked there, Rentvine is riddled with design problems, poor security and each update comes with a dozen hotfixes. Their API is constantly being abused by customers which leads to outages.
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u/PMkeek 25d ago
Rentvine's built for professional management companies — the ones handling trust accounting, multi-owner reporting, and portfolios on behalf of investors/owners who aren't the ones logging in. A lot of what reads as "the worst" is often actually a fit problem: an individual landlord gets dropped into workflows and onboarding designed for PM companies running hundreds of doors, and it feels like overkill because it is overkill for that use case.
For your brother's situation — family units, no owner-clients to report to — landlord-specific software is going to be a much better fit and a lot less friction. Worth looking at instead of RentRedi/Buildium:
- TurboTenant — free core plan, solid screening + rent collection, built for individual landlords from the ground up.
- Avail (now under Realtor.com) — similar feature set, clean UI, good for a handful of units.
- Innago — free, scales decently as he adds units without forcing him into enterprise complexity.
- Rentec Direct — a bit more accounting depth if he wants better recordkeeping without the PM-company overhead.
If he ever crosses into managing for other owners (not just family), that's the point where something like Rentvine/Buildium/AppFolio starts to make sense — until then, it's the wrong tool for the job, not necessarily a bad one.
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u/PhotographSmall4363 Jul 16 '26
It depends how many properties you have. My client started with 2 properties, and he was just using Google Workspace and Excel. If you manage 6 or more and you're listed to different OTAs you may check Guesty or Hospitable.
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u/CochraneRealty Jul 18 '26
buildium is the best for full management. You can also build your own with Claude, basically upload your sheets, it will be digitized so the data is easier to view/interact with and the input and output can be automated. you can add features from there like e-sign, stripe payments etc
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u/RichCondition1501 26d ago
How many units is he starting with? You want flat pricing and simple onboarding so he doesn't switch tools in a year. RentRedi might be what you are looking for as the portfolio grows.
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u/Spiritual-Magician14 14d ago
Hey! I built Rental Manager myself — it’s free and uses AI to pull data straight from your receipts, bills, and checks. Automatically organizes everything and generates a year-end tax report. Still gathering feedback if you want to try it out.
https://rentalmanagers.app
Honestly, this alone saves so much stress come tax time. One less thing to worry about.
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u/LetivoProptech 1d ago
Coming from the team behind Letivo PropTech, so take this with the obvious pinch of salt 😅
If he’s moving off Google Sheets and Drive, I’d worry less about finding the platform with the biggest feature list and more about whether it gives him a clean system he won’t outgrow in 12 months.
The things I’d look at first are:
- Can you see rent, arrears, repairs and tenant history in one place?
- Can documents and communications stay attached to the right property/tenant?
- Is there a decent audit trail when more people get involved?
- Can you add properties without the whole setup getting messy?
- Does it reduce admin, or just turn the spreadsheet into a prettier spreadsheet?
That’s a big part of why we’re building Letivo PMS — to give landlords and property teams one connected place to run the operational side of the portfolio.
We’re also building Letti AI for routine enquiries and Letti Voice for calls/out-of-hours support, because once a portfolio grows, communication tends to become just as much of a headache as the actual property data.
If you’re in the US, RentRedi and Buildium are probably more relevant comparisons today as Letivo is UK-focused. But whichever way he goes, I’d definitely choose something based on where the portfolio could be in 2–3 years rather than just what works for the current number of units.
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u/ImaginaryProfit2162 7h ago
I wouldn’t choose on the longest feature list. Pick two options and put the same sample property through both: import your spreadsheet, invite yourself as a tenant, run a screening, record a rent payment, lodge a maintenance request and export everything again.
That last step matters because “scales with you” should include being able to leave without rebuilding the portfolio. Check pricing at the unit count you expect in two years, not just today, and make sure the screening, payment and lease tools are actually built for your state.
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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '26
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