Apartments.com Full Review | Free Property Management Software - YouTube

hey guys it's mandy welcome to my channel so  this is finally my review of apartments.com  

for the past almost three years i  have been using cozy to collect rent  

and if you are unfamiliar with cozy it was a free  property management software you could collect  

rent list your properties collect applications you  could do background checks and credit checks and  

your tenants could submit maintenance requests  through the program as well cozy was bought out  

by apartments.com and this year all of the cozy  accounts have transitioned over to apartments.com  

so for the last three to four months i have been  using apartments.com and i think i can give you a  

pretty good review my opinion of the software  and what i think the number one reason why i  

used cozy and why i use apartments.com now is for  the ability to collect rent online and for free  

if you ever collected rent the old-fashioned way  where tenants either sent you a check in the mail  

or they brought you a check or they brought you  cash then you will know that there are a lot of  

headaches associated with that tenants claiming  that their rent got lost in the mail checks  

bouncing and even just the logistics of picking up  the rent and then taking it to the bank being able  

to collect rent online is so much easier it makes  it almost completely passive the rent just shows  

up in your bank account each month and you're  good to go and then the reason why i choose to  

use apartments.com specifically when there are a  lot of other different programs and different rent  

collection softwares out there is because it's  free and it's free for the landlord to collect  

rent but it's also free for the tenant to pay rent  as long as they pay with a bank transfer now they  

could also choose to pay with their credit card  or with their debit card and if they choose one of  

those two methods then there is a 2.75 service fee  for using the card i actually looked into a lot  

of other rent collection softwares when i found  out that cozy was transitioning to apartments.com  

and i even had quite a few different companies  email me and asked me if i was interested in doing  

like an affiliate program with them or partnering  with them and i ended up declining every single  

email and my reason was because their their  programs did not offer a free way for tenants  

to pay rent every single program um at least the  ones that emailed me there was a one dollar fee  

for tenants to pay even with the bank transfer  method i know that that's not much and actually  

a one dollar fee was the lowest some of them were  a couple dollars none of them were very high they  

were always like one dollar or two dollars but you  should not have to pay to pay rent that just it's  

ridiculous it seems like it should be illegal  almost i don't i don't care if it's just one  

dollar i don't care if it's like five cents it  just does not seem right and as a tenant myself  

i i would just be it doesn't seem okay that  there's not a free way to pay your rent you  

have to pay let's say i don't know eight hundred  dollars in rent each month it's ridiculous that  

you would have to pay a dollar to be able to  pay your rent it just doesn't make any sense  

now all of those programs out there uh what  they would say in response to me saying this  

is well if you feel that way if you don't want  your tenants to have to incur this one dollar  

fee then that's fine then you could pay it  as a landlord you could pay the one dollar  

i don't i don't want to pay the one dollar i want  it to be free and as long as there's a free option  

out there i'm going to choose the free option and  maybe you know it's one dollar if you have one  

property and if you have five properties is five  dollars so that's not so bad but when you have 20  

properties that's 20 extra dollars per month and  that's an addition to the fee that most of these  

software's charge for you to use anyway so some  of them are already a 20 a month base fee you add  

20 more dollars that's 40 each month or some of  them some of them are cheaper some of them were  

like five dollars so that would be 25 each month  and i'm not necessarily saying it's not worth it  

but i am saying as long as there's a free option  i'm gonna keep choosing to use the free option  

so the other thing that i really love about the  online payments is that late fees are automatic i  

used to find it really hard to charge and enforce  late fees but that also made it really easy for my  

tenants to not consider rent a priority now that  late fees are added automatically and the tenants  

know that i'm not going to take it off that it's  the same for everybody and if you let the rent  

be late past the grace period which i give them a  five day grace period then you're going to have to  

pay an additional 35 dollars which is my late fee  now you can put whatever you want for the late fee  

um you may want to check your state laws with  for that because most states do have laws  

regarding the amount that you can charge for  a late fee so i want to show you guys what the  

payments page looks like for apartments.com i'm  not actually going to take you into my account  

what i did was i took a screenshot of the payments  page and then i blocked out everything that was  

personal information that way i could be sure  that i didn't let any personal information slip by  

i thought it would be i know the limits of  my editing skills and i thought if i was  

scrolling a lot it was just gonna be really  hard to make sure everything was covered up  

okay so this is what the payments  page for apartments.com looks like  

i wanted to give you a to show you a  good variety this is what it looks like  

when a tenant owes money there's a little  orange bar here so it's really easy to just  

click on payments you can scroll through the whole  page and anything that's orange you know that  

that tenant is behind on rent so that shows the  outstanding balance and then normally the tenant's  

name would be here and the property address would  be here it also shows you the term the length of  

the lease and so this one says no end date that's  because that's a month to month lease and then  

this one's ending soon that was a six month lease  this tenant he actually paid over by a little bit  

um he just recently started renting so he put the  wrong amount in the first month and then he hasn't  

gone back in either he'll get that 15 back  at the end or he could take it off one of the  

future month payments he just hasn't done so yet i  told him about it but he didn't seem too concerned  

about the 15 so if we get to the end of the six  months and if he does move out then i will just  

refund him that 15 when i give him the deposit  back now if you click on view all transactions  

this is the page you're gonna come to and it will  actually show you every single payment that the  

tenant has ever paid and it shows you each month  when rent was due and here this tenant even had a  

late fee added one month so it shows that as well  so i actually really like the layout i think it's  

clean and concise and easy to see what's going  on but in addition to this you will actually  

you will also get an email so this is my email  from october 1st most of my tenants do pay on  

the first but some of my tenants pay on the 15th  and so i'll get an email on the 15th if rent is  

late then i will also get an email saying that the  late fee was added so if you are more of an email  

person and you don't want to have to log into the  account then you could just keep track of it this  

way as well now the other big thing i used to use  apartments.com for was for listing properties and  

then collecting applications i would use those  applications as kind of like a pre-screening tool  

and then the tenants that actually met my criteria  for renting i would contact them and show the  

property the reason that i loved having those  applications as a pre-screening tool is because  

no matter what you put in the listing like you can  say no smoking in big bold letters and you could  

have it on that listing three times and you'll  still get 10 people apply who smoke obviously  

like i don't want to waste my time and i don't  want to waste their time showing them the property  

when it's not going to work out unfortunately  i won't be able to do this with apartments.com  

and the reason for that is because tenants are  charged a 29 fee for filling out the application  

with cozy the application was free but if you  wanted them to do a credit check and a background  

check then they would be charged but it was an  additional step separate from the application  

now it's all combined you cannot do the  application without the credit check and the  

background check so the tenants do have to pay  that 29 fee now the 29 fee it gives them access  

to apartments.com for an entire month so they can  fill out as many applications as they want during  

that time and they won't be charged additional  fees for additional applications it's not that  

i don't think that this is a good price i think  it's reasonable for getting a background check and  

a credit check i think that's very reasonable my  problem is that i normally get 40 applications in  

two days and then i cut off the process because  i just can't handle more than 40 applications  

so while the fee would definitely cut down on  the number of applications i'm getting i really  

don't want just somebody to have to pay for an  application when i'm not going to rent them the  

property and having no control over whether or not  they pay that fee and it doesn't go to me it just  

goes to the site there's nothing i can do about it  but i feel like people would still be aggravated  

at me if i'm charging them 29 and then i'm not  renting to them it may work for you guys it just  

doesn't work for me i'm going to find a way to  pre-screen tenants for free that does not include  

a fee of course because it's free and then  i also wanted to show you the landing page  

i just really didn't like it so when you  do put your property up for rent and you  

list it through apartments.com you will  get a link and you could put that link  

like on facebook if you wanted and then people  could click the link and they could fill out  

an application or you can invite people to  fill out the application by email and so it  

will send them an email and it will have the link  and they click on the link in the email well this  

is the landing page that it takes them to if  they click that link so i don't know what you  

guys think about it but to me it just looks like  a scam that guy with his hand like that it just  

it looks like he's trying to take your money so i  don't know i don't like it and if i clicked on a  

link to fill out an application for a rental  property and it took me to this i'd be like  

no i'm not giving them my 29 this is obviously  a scam now to be fair i always think anyone  

trying to take any money from me is a scam so  maybe i'm just a little overly sensitive but i  

i just don't like how the landing page looks  another feature of apartments.com is that you  

can keep track of all of your expenses associated  with your rental properties in the software  

so basically you just log into your account  you click expenses and then you add expense  

and i think it's a really good option if you  have one or two maybe even like five properties  

but to me it's a little bulky once you start  getting past five properties and especially if  

you have a lot of expenses associated with those  properties because basically you're adding expense  

and then you're typing the information in all  individually so you're moving your cursor into  

each little box to type in the information  and then you're hitting submit and then you  

have another expensive to do it over and over and  over again and it just takes a lot more time than  

what it takes me to do those same expenses  in excel but i really like excel i've been  

using it for a long time and it's just  quick for me and easy and i already have  

everything set up the way that i like it if you  have your properties down where you don't really  

have a lot of expenses or you have the time it  takes to enter in all those expenses individually  

then i think the apartments.com um tracking system  i think it's i think it's really good i don't see  

any issues with it if you're willing to enter  them all in the really cool thing is that you  

can generate income reports for your properties so  i'm going to show you what one of those looks like  

okay so this is an income statement for one of  my properties now if i were to hit this drop down  

arrow like i said this is a screenshot so i can't  but if i were to hit this drop down arrow then i  

could select any of my properties that i choose i  could select for the tax period which would be a  

year or i could select um three months four months  six months whatever time frame i want to look at  

and then apartments.com will generate an income  statement for that time it has your income for the  

time frame and then it has all of the expenses for  that property for the same time frame and if you  

scroll down it shows you a breakdown of all the  income so for this property there was a security  

deposit paid and then there's the rent there's no  additional income so it's just the rent each month  

and if i could scroll down either even further it  would have a breakdown of all the expenses as well  

and then the nice thing is that you can download  this report and then you can print it off keep  

it for your own records or give it to your tax  guy at the end of the year so there are a few  

other services that apartments.com provides  that i have not utilized but i do want to  

show them to you and mention them one is that  tenants are able to make maintenance requests  

through the site for my tenants i just give them  my phone number and they either call me or text me  

it's easier for me it's easier for them and  i can get the problem addressed a lot quicker  

now the thing about apartments.com is i believe  that when you can set it up that when a tenant  

sends a maintenance request through the website  you can receive that request on your phone via  

text message or to your email so i i've never  used it but i believe that's true i think you  

can set it up that way and i know for sure let  me show you this because there's another option  

where the tenants can inbox you and it does say  that you could set it up where they can email you  

or send the text message to your phone like i said  i've never used it but it does seem like it would  

be useful if you don't want your tenants to have  your personal cell phone number now back when cozy  

still existed there were two big complaints that i  would hear one is that it took five business days  

for rent to deposit into your bank account that is  still true with apartments.com it does still take  

five business days for rent to go from the  tenant's account into your account and if  

there is a weekend in there then it will take  seven days it's it's literally five business  

days if there's a holiday it's gonna take six days  so if you are not okay with waiting that long for  

your rent then this probably isn't going to be a  good option for you the second big complaint that  

i would hear people say is that there's no app for  cozy apartments.com has fixed that issue and there  

is an app now i can't review the app very well  because this is my cell phone um i think it might  

be a 6s i don't know this otterbox i know it looks  like i don't care about it or take care of it  

this i've had this through two phones though and  i keep my phones until they literally don't work  

anymore so i don't even remember when i got this  otterbox i don't even remember how long i've had  

it but it's very old i've had it for a really long  time at least i hope i'm not lying to you i think  

that's true i'm almost certain i remember when i  got this phone i was really happy because it was  

the same size as my older phone and for the first  time ever i didn't have to buy a new otterbox so i  

hope i'm not lying to you but i've had this phone  so long that i really don't remember the thing  

about my phone is that it no longer updates so i  don't know what ios software i'm running on here  

but my phone will not update anymore and you  have to have at least like ios 13 or something  

to be able to download well i haven't been able  to download a new app for a long time i can't get  

the publix grocery store app and i cannot get  apartments.com so i really haven't been able  

to test out the app but i will say i did put the  app onto our ipad so that i would be able to test  

it out and give a better review what i will say  is that putting it on the ipad it was basically  

the exact same thing as if i were to bring up the  website on the ipad it really wasn't any different  

and the one thing that i could say that i think  would make it better is if they had an app that  

was exclusive for the property management for rent  collection and and those types of things but the  

app it also includes the portion of apartments.com  that is a bunch of listings of properties  

so it wasn't as clean to navigate as i think that  it could have been and i hope that makes sense um  

if you do download the app you'll know what i'm  talking about and then again i haven't really  

used the app very much i put it on the ipad just  the other day so i really haven't i don't know  

if there's other issues now the one complaint  that i've heard about apartments.com is people  

saying that the interface the user interface is  they don't like it it's not very friendly to me  

that may be true for the app because it does get  a little it keeps one almost wanting to take you  

back to the listings but you just want to be on  the property management part of the app but it's  

like every time you hit back it wants to take you  to the listings is kind of what i felt like but  

when i'm on my computer on apartments.com i don't  have that issue at all and i think the interface  

is almost exactly the same as it was with cozy  i showed you guys a few screenshots there and i  

think it's really clean really easy to navigate  i don't have any issues with it so i'm not sure  

if those people are just complaining about the  app or if there's other issues with the desktop  

portion of the website that i'm just not i'm just  not having i will also add that my tenants have  

adjusted well none of them are complaining i think  the first month two of them said oh we really miss  

cozy we don't like this as much but i think that's  just with anything that change honestly i hate  

change as much as the next person and i hardly  noticed going from cozy to apartments.com it was  

very smooth very streamlined it i didn't have  any issues so i really like apartments.com i'm  

going to keep using it they did not sponsor me um  and i like i said i turned down opportunities to  

partner with other programs anyway i really like  apartments.com i think it is still the best option  

out there for free rent collection i'm going  to keep using it i will have to let you guys  

know what i decide to do for listings i have a  property that i'm about to list in a couple weeks  

so i'll have to update you guys on what i do  for that but as far as rent collection goes  

i'm definitely sticking with apartments.com if  you guys have anything that i missed there's  

always something i forget to say so go ahead  and add your thoughts in the comments below  

if there is a program out there that you just  think blows apartments.com out the water it's way  

better let us know about that too because there's  definitely a lot of them and i have not looked  

into every single other option anyway i hope you  guys like the video and i'll see you next time bye