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As the Canadian property market continues its dynamic evolution, so does the need for efficient, streamlined, and innovative tools to manage rental properties.
Whether you're a seasoned landlord with a diverse portfolio or a new property manager looking to streamline your processes, finding the right software can be a game changer. Enter property management software—a digital solution designed with the unique needs of landlords and property managers in mind.
There are numerous different options for property management software out there, including for Canadian investors and property managers.
Between Liv.Rent, DoorLoop, Property Vista, and others, this consequential decision can be pretty challenging for any landlord or property manager.
When diving into the world of property management software, it's important to thoroughly research your options while keeping your needs in mind so you can avoid rental scams or simply wasting money on something that won't work for you.
Are you renting out residential, commercial, or industrial real estate properties? Do you need a new tool for marketing your listings? How many users will be using the tool you choose?
Do you already have tools for accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), work orders, and rent tracking? Would you rather keep them all on just one platform?
These are key questions to consider on your journey.
And to make that quest simpler, we've created this comprehensive review of one particular property management software in Canada: Liv.Rent.
We'll delve into the myriad of features Liv.Rent has to offer, highlighting its strength, weaknesses, pricing, potential applications, and even an alternative in case you want something a little different.
About Liv.Rent
Liv.Rent is a Vancouver-based company that built a rental platform to save landlords and property managers time and energy on their property management tasks.
The software digitizes the rental process for landlords and renters alike. Here are some of the features it offers for landlords and property managers in particular:
- Marketing tools
- Property listing syndication
- Digital lease agreements
- Rent collection
Through these features, your renters can enjoy the following:
- Easy way to search verified rental listings
- Secure rental document storage
- Video tours for properties
- Online rental applications
It's a great option for individual landlords and property management companies in Canada looking to boost the efficiency of their businesses, but is it the best property management solution? That depends on what type of business you run, your budget, and your pain points.
Think about these things to get an idea of what you need as you read this article.
With that said, we'll now get into the specifics about Liv.Rent so you can understand the full scope of what it has to offer!
Liv.Rent Property Management Software Features
As a property management tool, Liv.Rent offers a wealth of features for landlords and property managers as well as their renters. We'll focus on a few of their notable offerings below and explain how they can help you.
Marketing
Liv.Rent makes creating rental listings for your vacancies easy through its auto-generated listing page. The software's listing pages are specially designed to attract tenants' attention with nice layouts and clearly displayed information on amenities, transit times, and more.
To maximize exposure of your listings to high-intent leads, Liv.Rent also offers a means to share them across popular sites through property listing syndication. Liv.Rent offers this functionality for Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Kijiji.
From Liv.Rent's dashboard, you can also see how your listings are doing in terms of views, pricing statistics, and applicant rates.
Leasing
When it comes to leasing, Liv.Rent also offers some strong tools for property managers and landlords. After you receive prospects' digital applications and decide whom you'll be renting to, you can take advantage of the software's digital contract feature to create, send, and sign lease agreements easily in one go.
Liv.Rent has a customizable lease template within its platform, where you can convert applications into contracts, add an additional renter, insert addendums to sign, and define rental terms for the tenancy. You can do this via a chat platform through Liv.Rent as well.
Here are some of the rental terms the software is built to include:
- Contact info (name, address, etc.)
- Lease term length for the unit
- Rent amount, date, and frequency
- Insurance requirements
- Deposits
- Pet policies
- Extra fees
This all makes signing lease agreements and starting a new tenancy easy.
Rent Collection
Of course, you need to collect rent to obtain your income.
One of the other important features Liv.Rent offers is rent collection. There isn't much information about this feature 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.
Liv.Rent Canadian Property Management Software Pricing
It then comes down to pricing.
Interestingly, Liv.Rent does have a totally free option. Intended for new landlords, Liv.Rent's Essentials option offers unlimited property listings, standard digital contracts, rent collection, secure document storage to protect residents' private information 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.
Liv.Rent Alternative: DoorLoop
You may have noticed that Liv.Rent doesn't have some of the key features that landlords and property managers need. The Liv.Rent website does not list any functionality for maintenance request management, accounting, bookkeeping, or other everyday tasks.
If you're a property manager or landlord looking for an all-in-one platform that'll truly facilitate the entire rental process for you, then you might want to look into some other platform than Liv.Rent.
Our proposal to you is DoorLoop.
DoorLoop is an all-in-one rental platform built with the needs of property managers, renters, and landlords in mind. For that reason, it includes all of those desirable property management-related features Liv.Rent is lacking and then some.
The founders of DoorLoop have one mission: to make property management easier and more accessible than ever so that you can make more money and save time that could be better allocated to more demanding tasks in your business.
DoorLoop Features
DoorLoop's comprehensive suite of features includes the following:
- Accounting and bookkeeping
- Tenant screening
- Rent collection
- Tenant portal
- Owner portal
- Maintenance request management
- Online rental applications
- eSignature
- Secure file storage
- Marketing tools
As a cloud-based property management software, DoorLoop is available anywhere and anytime. Whether you're using a computer, tablet, cellphone, or other device, DoorLoop's website and mobile app have everything you need in one place.
DoorLoop is also known for offering incredible service to its customers. So if you ever happen to have any issues, the support team will always have your back with quick response times.
DoorLoop Canada Property Management Software Pricing
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DoorLoop is flexible and inexpensive for what it offers, especially compared to competitors.
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.
If you want to take advantage of DoorLoop's owner portal and other advanced features like a custom website or API access, you can upgrade to its Pro ($119 per month) or Premium ($179 per month) plans. While these plans come at an additional cost, their functionalities make them a great deal and extremely worthwhile.
Without putting in any bank account information or paying a dime, you can also check out DoorLoop's free demo. Visit this page to learn more.
Bottom Line
Whether you're a landlord in Toronto, Ontario; a property manager in New Westminster or Vancouver, British Columbia; or another property management professional anywhere in between, you need property management software to keep up with the times, fulfill the needs of your tenants, and grow your businesses.
Our most important tips for deciding on what the best property management software for you is to understand your needs and do your research.
Our hope is that this blog post has served as helpful guidance for just that as well!
The next step from here is to continue doing your own research and to schedule demos. Demos are a great way to see your property management software candidates firsthand and ask questions so that you can determine whether it suits your business.
Whether you manage residential properties, commercial properties, or another type of real estate, we're confident that DoorLoop can fulfill those needs, which is why we offer our demos for free. See for yourself, and schedule a demo with us today!
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