Canada Property Management Software: DoorLoop vs. Liv.Rent

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Today's property managers need to be tech-savvy to stay ahead of the competition, make their tenants happier, improve efficiency in the business, and increase profits.

This includes using a cloud-based solution like property management software.

Property management software is an all-in-one platform for your property management needs. The best property management software serves as an end-to-end solution for property managers to automate tedious manual tasks from the beginning (i.e., marketing and rental applications) to end (i.e., automated rent collection and maintenance requests).

The solution is simple, but the journey to get there is a little less so. What is the best property management software? Which tool will help your specific rental property management business in Canada?

To make the decision-making process easier for you, we compared our very own DoorLoop to another Canadian property management solution: Liv.Rent.

The result is this guide, which will take you through our notes on the different features each software offers, where it stands out, how much it costs, and how the broad and powerful features help many property managers today.

Benefits of Property Management Software

We briefly mentioned a few processes that property management software can automate, but here's a full list of features that these programs can typically help property managers with:

Tenant management
Lease management
Maintenance requests and repairs
Accounting and financial management
Communication with residents and property owners
Document management and storage
Marketing for property listings
Bank reconciliation

That's only scraping the surface too. Property management tools like DoorLoop and Liv.Rent can do so much more, whether you manage residential properties, commercial real estate, short-term rentals, or student housing or even if you run a vacation rental business.

What do these features all amount to for property managers, though? See below:

Enhanced efficiency
Improved tenant experience
Accurate financial management
Data-driven decision-making
Scalability and growth potential for your property portfolio

How to Choose a Property Management Solution

Clearly, property management software is the way to go. But how do you select which property management tool is best for your specific business?

All businesses are built different, and the same goes for property management software.

With that in mind, when you're shopping around or reading the rest of this article, you should ask yourself these questions:

What features do you need most in a property management software? What tasks do you need automated? Marketing? Accounting? Maintenance requests?
What type of portfolio do you manage? Does it have residential, commercial, industrial, vacation, or student housing properties? Some or all of the above?
What's your budget? How might that change as you scale and grow your property management company or business? Do you need flexible pricing?
In what areas can you improve your resident experience?

These are critical questions, the answers of which will undoubtedly help guide your search. That way, the property management software you choose is exactly what you need, and your investment is sound.

DoorLoop vs. Liv.Rent Features

Once you know what you're looking for, it's time to actually see what today's property management tools are all about.

Here's an overview of features that the best property management software has and how DoorLoop and Liv.Rent deliver on them.

Marketing

Marketing is where it all begins. It's how your potential tenants find your properties and then become new tenants.

Your property management solution should provide you with best-in-class functionality for listing your properties across websites, receiving rental applications, and more.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop's team knows how important marketing is, and that's why it built a cutting-edge software that helps you market your properties across the internet in just a few clicks.

With DoorLoop, you can create a beautiful website for your property management business to advertise both it and your active property listings. Its time-saving features in this realm include listing syndication, which lets you post your listings across the most popular websites like Zillow and Apartments.com, all from one platform (instead of going to each website individually and doing so manually).

Once you set up your property listing the first time, it takes mere seconds to launch it everywhere you need.

Liv.Rent

With Liv.Rent, you can similarly create rental listings. Liv.Rent offers an auto-generated listing page that's designed to attract tenants' attention.

Liv.Rent also offers property listing syndication with a focus on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Kijiji.

Leasing

Leasing is the bridge that connects property managers and property owners to tenants, making lease management another essential feature of property management software.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop's lease management features are robust and an asset for any property manager.

If you're using one of DoorLoop's custom websites, you can create and share tenant applications tailored to your property management business on that site so that prospects can easily submit their information in the same place.

From there, you can review applications, send lease agreements, and sign those rental contracts through a convenient eSignature platform. You can even incorporate application fees into your application process.

Once tenants are in the door, DoorLoop automatically tracks the following so that lease management for your rental properties is effortless and resident experience management is simple:

Renewal dates
Rent schedules
Recurring charges
Activity for the lease and rent payments

Liv.Rent

Liv.Rent also has powerful leasing tools for landlords and property managers. The software's digital contract feature lets you convert applications into contracts, create lease agreements, send them to prospects, and sign them via a convenient chat platform.

If needed, you can also add parties and addendums following the program's custom lease templates.

Rent Collection

Of course, tenants paying rent is how landlords and property managers get most of their income. For that reason, having an all-in-one platform that not only gets your tenants in the door but also tracks the entire rental process thereafter is necessary for any property manager.

DoorLoop

As a rent manager and end-to-end software, DoorLoop tracks all incoming money, whether security deposits or rent payments. It automatically documents each step, which is especially important for your bookkeeping.

It also makes it so that you no longer have to chase your renters. With DoorLoop, you can send automatic rent reminders and charge late fees.

These features are all built with the intention of securing your profits and ensuring a good resident experience and landlord-tenant relationship.

Liv.Rent

Liv.Rent offers rent collection as well. There doesn't seem to be much information about it on the company's website, but the software does seem to be able to collect rent from tenants via credit card, Union Pay, or Bitcoin.

You can also schedule reminders to help you stay on top of your rent collection.

Maintenance

Maintenance is integral to protecting your investment and ensuring a good resident experience, which is why property owners and property managers alike should look for related features when shopping around for property management software.

DoorLoop

Your tenants and dedicated service teams alike will appreciate DoorLoop's maintenance request system. Not only is the program a property management software, but it also functions as a work order software.

First of all, DoorLoop does offer a tenant portal, where residents can manage their rent and security deposit payments and enjoy communication features to reach out to their landlord or property manager.

It's from this comprehensive tenant portal that residents are able to submit service requests for maintenance issues as well. They can attach relevant photos and messages as needed.

From there, property managers can view these requests, edit them, assign work orders to their dedicated service teams, and communicate with all involved parties every step of the way.

Liv.Rent

Unfortunately, this is where Liv.Rent's functionalities appear to stop. The company's website does not list any information about the property management tool being able to handle service requests.

Accounting

Residential, commercial, and short-term rental managers, among other types of property managers, all need good accounting tools.

It's always possible to use a separate program for just accounting, but if you want to keep it all in one place, we recommend looking for a property management software that has all the features you need for convenience.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop's team has done the research, and many people on the team are property managers themselves, so they're well aware of how much of a pain point accounting is in property management.

That's why the company has gone above and beyond in making sure that its accounting features are robust. From tracking accounts payable and receivable to generating statements and reports for the business or for property owners, DoorLoop's property management software does it all.

So many digital platforms leave some accounting and bookkeeping features out, but DoorLoop is built to replace dedicated accounting software so that property managers can enjoy dedicated property management software and do it all from one platform instead.

Liv.Rent

Liv.Rent does not seem to advertise any accounting-related features for managing rental properties.

Pricing

Before you make the final decision, there's one more thing you need to address: cost.

To help you make an informed and cost-effective decision, we've compiled information about DoorLoop's and Liv.Rent's pricing plans.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop starts at an affordable $59 per month for up to 20 units. It'll also grow with your property portfolio, regardless of which types of properties you manage.

Liv.Rent

Interestingly, Liv.Rent does have a totally free option. Intended for new landlords, Liv.Rent's Essentials option offers unlimited property listings, secure document storage, standard digital contracts, and rent collection at no cost.

For some more features like analytics reports and custom contracts, you can upgrade to the Growth plan for $56 per month or the Business plan for $490 per month.

What Is the Best Property Management Software for Canadian Property Managers?

So what is the best property management software for property managers in Canada?

There are loads of options out there, such as Building Stack, Property Vista, and more. DoorLoop and Liv.Rent are particularly great contenders too.

As we've alluded to a few times, however, Liv.Rent is unfortunately not a comprehensive property management software. If you're looking for a tool that will automate your marketing and initial leasing specifically, then it could be a terrific option for you!

But if you want something that handles everything that comes afterward, then it might not be a good fit.

That's why we personally recommend DoorLoop.

DoorLoop has all of the following and more: