Property Management Software BuyerView Report Insight into today s software buyer
Abstract Since 2010, we ve spoken with thousands of property management software buyers. We recently analyzed a random sample of 385 interactions with property management software buyers to determine: How are buyers currently managing their properties? Why are companies buying property management software? What are the top applications required by property management companies? How have buyer sizes changed over the last four years?
How Buyers Currently Manage Accounting and Leases Excel/spreadsheets Property mgmt software Accounting software Manual methods Other 3rd party manager 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% Percent of sample In our sample, 32 percent of buyers use spreadsheets to manage accounting and lease tracking while 31 percent of buyers use property management software.
Top Reasons for Buying Property Management Software Improve efficiency/effectiveness Need more/better features Outgrowing current setup Time to update/modernize Required by new management Other/no reason given Consolidate multiple methods Hardware/technical failures Deployment concerns 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 Number of mentions The top reason buyers are looking to purchase property management software is to improve the efficiency, effectiveness or accuracy of their operations.
Profile of Buyers who Are Seeking to Improve Efficiency Excel/spreadsheets Manual methods Accounting software Property mgmt software 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Number of mentions Among buyers looking to improve their efficiency, 66 percent relied on either Excel or other manual methods, making them the most likely to cite this need.
Reasons for Replacing Property Management Software Update old/unsupported system Need more/better features Improve efficiency/effectiveness Current software too complex Other Hardware/technical failures Outgrowing current software Required by new management Consolidate multiple systems Customer support issues 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Number of mentions Many buyers are replacing their property management software because the system is outdated. 18 percent of our sample was looking for more robust features.
Top Reasons for Buying Among Accounting Software Users Improve efficiency/effectiveness Need lease tracking features Outgrowing current setup Consolidate multiple methods Time to update/modernize Required by new management Other 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Number of mentions 39 percent of accounting software users reported that they needed to improve their efficiency. Many reported that their system lacked tenant and lease tracking.
Top Reasons for Replacing Manual Methods Improve efficiency/effectiveness Need property mgmt features Outgrowing current setup Required by new management Other Consolidate systems/processes Time to join 21st century 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Number of mentions Buyers who use manual methods (e.g. pen and paper) to manage properties need to improve efficiency, and many felt they were outgrowing their current setup.
Top Reasons for Replacing Excel Improve efficiency/effectiveness Need property mgmt features Outgrowing current setup Consolidate systems/processes Other 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Number of mentions Buyers who use Excel to manage properties reported that they need property management features, and many cited a need for data tracking and reporting.
Top Property Management Application Requirements Tenant & lease tracking Property accounting Building maintenance Budgeting & forecasting 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percent of sample 99 percent of our sample required a tenant and lease tracking application while 93 percent required a property accounting application.
Residential Buyers Company Size by Number of Units 2010 2011 2012 2013 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% <50 units 50-100 units 100-500 units >500 units When looking at the company size of residential property management buyers, we noticed that buyer size has remained remarkably consistent over the years.
Commercial Buyers Company Size by Square Footage 2010 2011 2012 2013 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% <25K sq. ft. 25K-100K sq. ft. 100K-500K sq. ft. >500K sq. ft. In contrast to residential buyer size, commercial property buyer size has grown considerably, more than doubling in the last four years.
Top Evaluated Deployment Model Among Buyers 2010 2011 2012 2013 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Cloud-based On-premise Not determined The four-year trend among property management buyers is toward Cloud-based software solutions.
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