When choosing the right property management software from the extensive offerings in the marketplace, it’s essential to fully understand the available options and how they can best serve you and your investment. The last thing you want to do is research a multitude of tools just to go through the process again six months later.
In this Landlord Studio review, we will provide a comprehensive analysis of its history, user experience, and key features to help you make an informed decision.
Key Insights
- Landlord Studio tracks your financial earnings and cash flow from an easy-to-use dashboard. However, other features, like maintenance tracking, are less robust than other platforms.
- While Landlord Studio does offer a free tier for up to three units, the free plan lacks some common features. Plus, adding additional units can quickly add up and defeat the purpose of using the software.
- TurboTenant offers all of Landlord Studio’s features but provides a better tenant experience.
Understanding Landlord Studio
Landlord Studio started as a private tool for a pair of landlords to track their rental properties after they could not find anything in the marketplace that fit their needs. The goal was to make something incredibly easy to use while optimizing their investments.
After several years in the market and many iterations later, Landlord Studio now provides landlords with a full suite of tools and features to maximize investment and create a happy tenant experience.
The platform offers many features that you’d expect from property management software, such as a property listing syndication service, tenant and lease tracking, financial reporting, and a maintenance tracking system.
Read on to discover if Landlord Studio is the right platform for you.
User Interface and Experience
Upon logging into Landlord Studio, you’re immediately greeted with a comprehensive dashboard of features and reporting tools with easy access to your overall cash flow and filters to view all the reports at a property level. So, if you have multiple properties, this dashboard is a good way to track how things are going from a high level. There’s also a widget that keeps track of the overall value of your properties based on the original purchase price and the current valuation of the property.
Additionally, the left-hand dashboard has a navigation menu for easy access to the platform’s other features, like tenant screening status and maintenance tracking.
Key Landlord Studio Features
Landlord Studio offers many features you’d expect from a property management system, like tenant screening, lease tracking, financial reporting, and others. But not all platforms are created equal, so let’s dig in further to Landlord Studio’s feature set.
Tenant and Lease Tracking
As you’d expect, Landlord Studio can keep track of each tenant and the lease agreement associated with them. You can add contact info, including email addresses and phone numbers, and a notes section stores additional information if needed.
However, unlike other services, like Zillow Property Manager and TurboTenant, the feature’s overall functionality is slightly lacking. Also, no messaging system is contained within the platform, and the tenant management window is hidden under a “Contacts” section instead of prominently featured.
Financial Management and Reporting
One area in which Landlord Studio excels is in its financial management and reporting system; as soon as you log in to the platform, you’re greeted with a financial overview that tracks current income and expenses. Landlords can filter to view individual properties or the entire portfolio. There’s also a breakdown of expenses with built-in graphs and charts to make seeing overdue, paid, and upcoming expenses efficient.
Then, a full reporting section includes pre-built template documents, like Schedule E, P&L summaries, account transactions, and a full Breakdown Statement that groups expenses and payments by property. Additional template reports cover supplier expenses, a rent roll, and maintenance information.
Maintenance and Repair Management
A key component of ensuring your properties have a long life is prompt attention to any upcoming, in progress, or completed maintenance on each property. Landlord Studio allows tenants to add and track repairs across units that can be viewable by tenants or kept “eyes only” for landlords.
There’s also a space to add photos and change status, but no option for videos. It does not appear that there’s a way to assign a task to a maintenance pro or other vendor except by adding information to the notes section, which is a big drawback compared to other property management systems.
Pricing
One of the biggest concerns about Landlord Studio in our review is its pricing structure. While there is a free tier for up to three units with a limited feature set and delayed response times, the full suite of offerings can be quite expensive for landlords with a large portfolio of investment properties.
Pricing starts at $12/month for the Premium plan, which covers up to three units. Each additional unit adds $1 to the monthly cost. If you own one (or several) apartment buildings, your monthly cost to use Landlord Studio could quickly break the bank and make the efficiencies found in using software to manage your properties an unnecessary expense.
Customer Support
From the reviews available on multiple review websites, Landlord Studio’s customer support appears to be higher than similar vendors. Many users report prompt responses and quick attention to challenges as they arise. Their support team is often found replying to reviews across many consumer websites.
However, the free tier does not feature priority support. Instead, it relies on a community-based support system, which could be frustrating for landlords who need answers as quickly as possible to serve their tenants swiftly.
User Reviews
As of the writing of this Landlord Studio review, Capterra rates the platform 4.9 out of 5 stars based on 129 reviews. Many reviews praise prompt and responsive customer service attention and a reactive support team that tends to fix platform issues and bugs quickly.
The most significant flaws mentioned tend to discuss the limited level of detail in the reporting features and the high price tag for managing multiple units. The other drawback some users have mentioned relates to the maintenance tracking system and the need for assignable tasks to vendors and/or tenants.
Landlord Studio vs. TurboTenant
It’s easy to get lost in the bells and whistles of a sleek-looking property management service. But how do you know if it’s the right one for you and your properties? Both Landlord Studio and TurboTenant might appear similar on the surface, but once you dig in further, it’s clear that one stands out.
For one thing, there is no clear way to message tenants directly from the app with Landlord Studio, leading landlords to rely on text messages and emails. The challenge is that keeping track of texts and emails across many properties can quickly grow unwieldy, increasing the risk of making mistakes.
TurboTenant keeps all communication and messages in one location, resulting in a centralized place to ask and answer questions as they arise.
Additionally, the cost of Landlord Studio can balloon to extremely high rates if you manage several properties. TurboTenant’s free plan covers unlimited units and features everything you need to be a top-tier property manager.
Why Choose TurboTenant
While our Landlord Studio review demonstrates a robust experience that could suit a landlord’s needs, TurboTenant is the best choice for landlords with diverse portfolios.
From comprehensive tenant screenings to a full-fledged maintenance system and customizable leases based on state-specific lease templates, TurboTenant is a highly trusted property management software solution used widely across the United States.
One of the biggest reasons to use property management software is to make your job as a landlord as efficient and profitable as possible while servicing your tenants’ needs. With centralized communication, rent collection, applicant tracking, and customizable financial reports, TurboTenant is the premier option for over 650,000 landlords nationwide.
Sign up for a free account today and see why TurboTenant is the right choice for you.