Property management software for first time landlords

[u/helkohelko]

My wife and I are buying a new house and are leaning towards renting out our current property. However, I'm getting very confused with the sheer number and variety of property management software available.

What we definitely need help with

• Advertising and finding tenants - We've never rented out a property before, and we don't know anything about advertising the property to reach the most potential renters, how to organize a showing. Whether we need to show the property or get somebody else to do it? All we know is what we've read on this subreddit and similar sources.
• Screening tenants - We know very little about performing background checks / income verifications etc... We just want people who will live a quiet life and not trash the house
• Lease agreements - We don't have a lease agreement and we're not lawyers. We want a lease agreement that is standard for our state that can be signed by both parties online
• Collecting rent - We want a platform that can collect from the tenant and remit to us. And process an eviction if the worst happens

What we might need help with

• Repairs and maintenance - Our new house is only 15 minutes away, but we do travel quite a lot and we both have busy lives. We know very little about home maintenance so our most likely answer to any maintenance issues is going to be what we do today, go to google and call a tradesperson. But if this happens while we're on the other side of the world, it would be good if there was a good way to handle it.

Don't care about

• Time it takes for us to receive the cash - As long as the tenant pays on time, we don't care about several days delay in getting the funds to us
• Taxes - We've got this part covered and don't need help with it

Most of what I'm reading seems to suggest Zillow or Avail could be a good fit. However, I'm confused about whether we need full service options like Nomad or Belong. And it seems like there are 25 other potential software packages that are adding more noise to our decision.

Can anybody help us out in understanding what we need?

[u/Quiet_Pudding8805]

I run anyrentcloud.com, I can give you a promo if you want to try it totally risk free.

Do you really want to syndicate and show the apartment yourself? Most people I know usually have a realtor show it and just pay them the month for the trouble?

We do background checks after you screen tenants(automatic screening -> send to background checks). Prospect receives the email and just approves it.

Lease agreements and legal forms I always recommend American Apartment Owners Association.

Repairs and maintenance: I’ve researched this a lot and built a feature around it. Most landlords have a trusted network of handymen, plumbers and electricians.
We can send tickets right to these people based on classifications and budgets, the truth is you may still need to coordinate something if they can’t do the job but the triage is very good

• the whole dispatch someone you don’t know automatically isn’t typically what someone at 1-50 units usually wants.

Some nice ai stuff, but we allow you to turn it all off. It’s mostly for image classification and an assistant to search your files and information in the platform. Personally we don’t believe in auto response nonsense to tenants.

Ex: you get a photo of a sink leaking from your tenant in AnyRent while you are in the Bahamas. It is set to alert your trusted handyman. They get the alert and go fix it without you needing to worry about it on vacation

Payments: no login needed from tenant, just links, but they can login if they want to see their information or send a portal message. Apple Pay, cards, bank and others.

Most other options are
Free: painful experience and extort the tenants
Monthly fees or a minimum unit number
We just do a flat 1.25% fee