What is Buildium?

Buildium is a property management platform used by thousands of property managers to manage their properties. This platform is used to manage various portfolio types including community associations, student housing, affordable housing, and residential properties. It includes several features to help optimize and automate the most important property management tasks such as automatic listing syndication, marketing websites, electronic leases, tenant & owner communication tools, and maintenance management tools.

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Table of Contents

• What is Buildium?
• Full Review
• Buildium Pricing & Cost
• Buildium Features
  • Property Marketing
  • Applicant Management
  • Resident Management
  • Rent Collections and Payments
  • Accounting
  • Reporting
• Buildium Alternatives & Competitors
• Is Buildium Right For You?

Full Review

Buildium was co-founded in 2004 by Michael Monteiro and Dimitris Georgakopoulos. Buildium is utilized by over 16,000 customers in more than 50 countries, and used to manage over 1.8 million residential units.

Buildium offers several useful features that help property managers streamline their workflow and automate tasks. These features include automatic listing syndication, marketing websites, electronic leases, tenant & owner communication tools, and maintenance management tools.

Property managers typically use Buildium as an end-to-end solution for all their property management needs. Buildium helps property managers with the entire property management life cycle from listing their properties to inspecting units after tenants move out.

Overall, Buildium is a powerful property management solution that optimizes and automates a variety of important tasks. We recommend it for property managers responsible for small to medium sized residential portfolios. For those managing more than 150 units with access to bigger budgets, consider testing solutions, like AppFolio, with more advanced features such as AI leasing assistants and 24/7 maintenance contact center.

Buildium Pricing & Cost

Buildium pricing depends on the plan you select and your number of units. There is also a 10% discount if you pay annually.

Buildium Features

Below, we'll discuss the key features of Buildium, and how it can help you manage your properties. We include screenshots of the product to give you a sense of its design and layout.

Property Marketing

Buildium helps reduce vacancies by providing you with a variety of tools to market your properties. Buildium’s features include custom property listings, automatic listing syndication, and marketing websites.

Custom Property Listings

Buildium allows you to create customizable listings for your rental properties. The information about your properties that Buildium can store and distribute include:

Automatic Listing Syndication

With Buildium’s one-touch syndication, you can automatically post your rental listings to a variety of property listing websites. Any updates that you make to your listing in Buildium will automatically update on these websites. Here are the property listing websites that Buildium is partnered with:

Marketing Website

A subscription to Buildium includes a marketing website where you can post all of your listings. Prospective tenants can apply for listings directly in the website, and all applications will automatically update in the Buildium platform.

Applicant Management

Buildium’s applicant management features help property managers choose the best tenants. Several features that Buildium offers include customizable applications, applicants module, tenant screening, and electronic leases.

Customizable Applications

Buildium allows you to create fully customizable online rental applications. Application templates include common sections and fields such as personal information, rental history, and employment information. You can also add any sections and fields you like. Applications submitted into your Buildium website or any partnered listing websites are automatically uploaded in the platform.

Applicants Module

Buildium helps you manage and compare your applicants, so you can quickly find the best tenant. In the applicants module, you can organize applications by unit and applicant, view contact information, and track the status of the applications. Buildium also allows you to set parameters such as credit score requirements, so you can quickly reject undesired applicants. Once you find the best applicant, you can notify them that they have been accepted, and immediately add them to the tenant management system.

Tenant Screening

Through Buildium’s partner TransUnion, you can run credit and background checks on your prospective tenants. Screening results are automatically uploaded into Buildium. You can pay for the screening tests yourself, or charge your applicants. Tenant screening costs $15 for you, or $30 for your applicants.

Eviction checks are only available in the Growth Plan. Setup costs $99, and each screening costs $18.

Electronic Leases

You can upload and send your prospective tenants electronic leases directly in Buildium. Leases can be electronically signed by your applicants. All leases are saved into Buildium, and can be managed and organized in the platform. Also, Buildium is equipped with lease templates that autofills data that your prospective tenants entered in their application.

Resident Management

Buildium provides several tools to help property managers streamline their daily workflow and increase operational efficiency. Buildium provides a resident center, communication module, and maintenance management tools, and a property inspection mobile app.

Online Tenant Portal

Tenants use Buildium’s online tenant portal to make rent payments, set up recurring payment schedules, and send maintenance requests. The online tenant portal can be accessed through your Buildium website, or through the Buildium mobile app.

Property Owner Portal

The property owner portal allows owners to access important documents, view company financials, and track the performance of their properties. Like the online tenant portal, owners can log into their account on any device.

Communication Module

Buildium offers several ways to communicate with your tenants, owners, and vendors. You can send emails and have text message conversations directly in Buildium, and conversation histories are saved in the platform. You can also send mass emails to all of your recipients, and bulk text messages to 10 recipients at a time. Buildium provides customizable templates to accelerate communication. Buildium also supports mailing, and will print, stuff, and mail documents for $0.80 per one-page mailer.

Maintenance Management

You can manage and track your vendors and work orders in Buildium’s maintenance module. You can use this module to assign tasks, schedule due dates, track progress, and communicate with your vendors.

You can give vendors a limited-access Buildium account. This allows your vendors to quickly update tasks, write notes, and communicate with your tenants.

Property Inspections

Buildium partnered with HappyCo to offer a mobile app for property inspections. You can use this app to make checklists, take notes, and capture photos & videos.

Rent Collections and Payments

Buildium’s electronic payments features allows you to quickly send and receive payments. According to the company, payments are typically processed in 1 to 2 business days which is faster than many other property management solutions.

Receivables

You can collect rent and payments through Buidium’s ePay feature. Tenants can send you one-time payments, or set up a recurring payment schedule in the online tenant portal. You can also configure automatic late fees in Buildium.

Payments are deposited directly into your bank account. You can set up multiple bank accounts if you wish to separate your payments by category.

Payables

You can also use ePay to pay your owners and vendors. All payments sent and received are automatically recorded into the general ledger.

Accounting

Buildium is equipped with an accounting module that helps you manage your company's finances. Here is an overview of the accounting tools found in the platform.

Company Financials

In the company financials module, you can track important financial metrics. It offers a quick breakdown of your company cash, unpaid bills, and net income. It also shows how your capital is distributed amongst your different accounts.

General Ledger

Buildium’s general ledger is a useful tool to manage and track your accounts receivable & payable, revenue, and expenses. All payments that you send or receive are automatically updated in this ledger. It is equipped with filtering and search capabilities to help you organize statements and find what you are looking for.

Billing

In Buildium’s accounting module, you can manage and track your bills. You can quickly see which bills are paid, due, and overdue, and pay the vendor directly in Buildium. Buildium also allows you to collect markups for your bills. You can configure a global markup policy which will apply a default markup to all bills entered in a specific account.

Automatic Bank Reconciliations

With Buildium’s automatic bank reconciliation feature, you can quickly input and match banking and transaction information. This allows you to find discrepancies faster, so you can quickly address the issue.

1099 eFilling

You can e-file your 1099s directly on the Buildium platform. You can use Buildium to verify tax numbers, track recipients with missing tax information, confirm that your 1099s were sent, and track summary forms. Also, you can generate forms for both property owners and vendors, and send them through USPS in Buildium.

Shortcuts

Buildium is equipped with shortcuts that help accelerate the accounting process. These shortcuts allow you to quickly: Record and print checks Record deposits Collect management fees Pay out management income accounts Record and pay bills [/list[ You can access these shortcuts anywhere in Buildium from a drop-down menu in the toolbar.

Reporting

Buildium allows you to run a variety of reports, so you can quickly view and analyze key data. Here is a quick breakdown of the types of reports you can generate in Buildium:

Buildium Alternatives & Competitors

Buildium competes with many other property management solutions that offer similar functionality. The best choice for you will depend on your budget, volume of properties, and feature preference.

Buildium's top competitors are:

We've analyzed Buildium compared to its top competitors. Read these in-depth analyses that evaluate Buildiume's cost, features and ease of use compared to alternatives:

In this section, we'll help you make the right decision by exploring how Buildium compares to two of its biggest competitors: AppFolio and Cozy.

Buildium vs. AppFolio

Buildium and AppFolio are both popular end-to-end property management solutions used by thousands of property managers to automate repetitive tasks and increase operational efficiency. These solutions help property managers syndicate their property listings, screen tenants, collect payments, track maintenance requests, and manage finances.

Buildium is the better system for small to medium sized businesses that manage less than 150 units. At this number of units, Buildium is more affordable because AppFolio enforces a $250 minimum monthly fee. Buildium also includes a free marketing website in their subscription cost which is a feature you pay extra for in AppFolio.

AppFolio is the better solution for property managers managing a high volume of properties. AppFolio is equipped with an AI leasing assistant and 24/7 maintenance contact center. These tools automate the tasks of responding to rental inquiries and fielding maintenance calls which are particularly difficult to manage as you scale.

For in-depth analysis, check out our AppFolio vs. Buildium comparison guide.

Buildium vs. Cozy

Buildium and Cozy are both property management systems used by thousands of property managers to manage their residential properties. Buildium offers far more features than Cozy, and is more useful for property managers managing a medium to large volume of properties. Cozy is a free to use product that is better suited for independent landlords managing smaller portfolios. If you manage more than 50 units and desire accounting, reporting, and communication features in your product, Buildium is the best option. If you desire a free and lightweight solution, consider testing Cozy.

For in-depth analysis, check out our Buildium vs. Cozy comparison guide.

Is Buildium Right For You?

Buildium is an all-in-one property management platform used by thousands of property managers to manage their residential properties. The platform optimizes and automates many tasks in property marketing, resident management, accounting, and reporting.

Buildium’s competitive pricing makes it an ideal option for property managers responsible for small to medium sized portfolios. If you manage more than 150 units with a bigger budget, you should consider testing other solutions equipped with high-tech features. AppFolio, for example, offers artificial intelligence leasing assistants and 24/7 contact centers that can significantly reduce your workload.

If you're interested, you can start your free trial of Buildium today.