How does Landlord Studio fare when compared to dozens of other popular real estate management software? Our Landlord Studio review takes a deep dive into this robust desktop and mobile application.
From contract and insurance management to rent and vacancy tracking, real estate management software can ease the tedious work of landlords and managers of residential real estate properties.
Powerful tools that can offer financial insights, streamline rental management tasks, and assist with taxes not only help clear up a property manager's time but also improve overall financial performance.
Landlord Studio is one such software that aims to make property management a whole lot easier.
For property managers shopping for the best software, is Landlord Studio worth the price? What features make it stand out from others?
Finally, is Landlord Studio worth the investment? Read our comprehensive Landlord Studio review to find out.
Table of Contents
What is Landlord Studio?
Charles Chan founded Landlord Studio along with Logan Ransley as a private tool to better manage his first property investment. Unable to find software that was specifically designed for his requirements, Charles put the software together and sold it on the App Store.
The app's success urged him to develop it into a full-fledged service.
Landlord Studio is built to be the anti-thesis of clunky and complex accounting software tools like Xero and Quickbooks.
It also offers more robust features that set it apart from traditional methods of income tracking like using spreadsheets and other analog methods.
Charles claims Landlord Studio to be “the only SaaS of its kind.”
As a property management tool, Landlord Studio helps owners handle all the aspects of their real estate business, especially when it comes to financial matters.
Financial management is at the core of Landlord Studio, as it allows owners to manage and monitor their income and expenses at the property, organization, and rental unit level.
You can also integrate your bank accounts, scan paper receipts, and generate tax reports (e.g. Form 1040, Schedule E).
The platform's powerful dashboard helps you track your rental property portfolio's financial performance in real-time.
To free up a property owner's time, Landlord Studio also comes with automation features that streamline key rental management tasks such as handling documents, engaging with contractors and suppliers, and coordinating inspection and maintenance activities.
You can use different channels to find and screen potential tenants or communicates with your current tenants via various channels including email, phone, and SMS.
See Related: Free Rental Property Excel Spreadsheet: Start Investing in Real Estate
How Landlord Studio works
Landlord Studio comes with a slew of robust tools and powerful features that rental property owners can take advantage of. Our Landlord Studio review will give you a quick rundown of each.
Tracking your finances
Financial insights are Landlord Studio's most important feature.
With a goal of helping property managers and landlords manage the financial aspects of their rental property business, the platform works exceptionally for any owner who manages a single-family or multi-family residential real estate with over eight units.
The platform comes with a wide variety of features that track your financial performance.
While it's more helpful than QuickBooks for managing small commercial real estate, Landlord Studio is not well equipped to manage the finances of large operations that have complex operating expenses and rent rolls.
To give you an overview of your finances, the platform helps you create income vs. expense reports. These reports are incredibly versatile and may be organized by property for unit-level expense tracking.
The easy-to-use dashboard also offers insights that help you understand the financial health of each of your portfolios. Narrowed down views allow you to identify which units are profitable and which ones cost you the most.
Landlord Studio also allows you to develop professional schedule E reports for taxes.
Property managers may also create a slew of other PDF or CSV reports including mileage, breakdown statement, tenant directory, rent roll, overdue and upcoming expenses, occupancy, net worth, payments made, rent overdue, rent ledger, and reminders.
Task automation
Repetitive management tasks are a thorn to a property manager's daily routine, especially when they become overwhelming. Landlord Studio streamlines rental property maintenance activities by allowing users to set reminders for a variety of regular maintenance tasks including gas safety inspections and electrical checks.
You can also automate your overdue and rent reminders so you don't have to worry about missing out on a rental payment or sending reminders to your tenants.
With Landlord Studio, property managers can do away with paper documents as the software allows them to electronically save all of their property-related documents on the cloud (e.g. financial statements, contracts, Form 1040 tax reports).
A powerful mobile accounting app
Our Landlord Studio review discovered that the Landlord Studio app is one of the platform's key features as it allows property managers to manage their finances on-the-go no matter where they are.
Available on both Google Play and the Apple app store, the mobile app is chockful of features with capabilities that allow you to screen tenants, track expenses, and generate a full property overview.
When subscribed for either the Growth or Sale subscription, property managers can sync their transactions from their bank account allowing them to have up-to-date financial information about all of their rental properties.
With centralized management for suppliers and contractors, you can also keep track of payments and expenses on upkeep and maintenance.
Made for residential properties
Landlord Studio is made exclusively for managing residential income properties, but our Landlord Studio review discovered that some people actually use the software for commercial real estate.
While you're free to do the same, keep in mind that the platform is not designed to accommodate industrial, office, and specialty properties with complex rent rolls or single-tenant triple-net leased buildings, especially those with a lot of pass-through operating expenses.
Landlord Studio will also not offer support for setting up and managing commercial properties.
If you're planning to see if the software can be used for your commercial properties, you can take advantage of the free trial to set up an account without having to commit right away.
Tenant Screening
Our Landlord Studio review discovered even more powerful features within the app that make property managers' lives easier. Those subscribed to the platform may avail of its free-to-landlords tenant screening via SmartMove. Your applicants can pay for this when they submit their application. (Do note that landlords situated in New York may only pass $20 of the tenant applications costs to their applicants).
Landlord Studio's tenant screening includes a full credit report, a Transunion credit check, a rental background check, and a ResidentScore. All tenant screening results are forwarded to your dashboard, allowing you to keep all of your data in one place.
Once you're ready to approve tenants, you can add them to the Landlord Studio dashboard with their details. You can also email them directly using the Landlord Studio app with any of Landlord Studio's ready-made email templates.
Calculators
All paid and non-paid subscribers get access to Landlord Studio's helpful calculators, which offers insights about your rent and properties.
The platform includes a mortgage calculator, a rental yield calculator, a prorated rent calculator, and a 70% rule calculator.
How to sign up for Landlord Studio
Our Landlord Studio review discovered that anyone can set up an account in Landlord Studio in no more than five to ten minutes. Landlords of small multi-family buildings and single-family rentals will be able to sign up with information based on memory alone.
Owners of extensive portfolios and larger buildings will most likely need to collect key pieces of information like mortgage details and rent rolls in order to get started.
Signing up is as easy as entering your email, setting up a password, and adding an optional phone number.
- Indicate whether you are a landlord or property manager
- Indicate how many units you manage.
- Indicate if you're renting out multi-units or a single-family home
You will then be prompted to add your first property where you'll have to include address details, property details, mortgage information, and valuation information.
See Related: 12 Best Rental Business Ideas – Make Money Renting Your Assets
Landlord Studio pricing
When compared to other property management software, Landlord Studio is pretty affordable when considering the wealth of features it provides. The platform has three subscription tiers: Start, Growth, and Scale.
New features are planned to be rolled out each year, including a tenant portal, online rent collection, digital leases, and maintenance requests. Once the platform rolls out these features, it could be a solid player alongside other full-featured property management software.
As of 2020, Landlord Studio offers the following pricing and benefits per tier.
Start (Basic subscription)
- Monthly cost: $5.99
- Extra unit: $1/month
- Includes 1 unit
- Income/expense tracking
- Free tenant screening
- Chat/email support
- Smart receipt scan
Growth (Standard subscription)
- Monthly cost: $9.99
- Extra unit: $1/month
- Includes everything in Start
- Advanced reporting
- Priority live support
- Push notifications
- Unlimited storage
- Connection to one bank
Scale (Premium subscription)
- Monthly cost: $19.99
- Extra unit: $1/month
- Includes everything in Growth
- Multi-user access for five users
- Free screening course
- Connections to five banks
Learn more about Landlord Studio's pricing here.
Landlord Studio vs Quickbooks
Most landlords and property owners looking to use Landlord Studio are already using QuickBooks, and with good reason. QuickBooks is a powerful bookkeeping and accounting software – probably the only thing you'll ever need when managing your finances.
Landlord Studio acknowledges the fact that QuickBooks may indeed be better for larger operations, stating that those that run a real estate-related business that doesn't own rental property, have entity-level accounting needs, or are used to using traditional balance sheets may still opt for a full-service accounting platform like QuickBooks.
Regardless, LandLord studio is a very attractive alternative to QuickBooks for those who aren't handling larger operations.
QuickBooks can be hard to set up and complicated to use for first-timers, while Landlord Studio allows a breezy set up within minutes.
It's also important to note that Landlord Studio is specifically designed for residential income properties, while QuickBooks is designed for general purpose.
Landlord Studio allows landlords and property managers to understand important metrics straight from the dashboard, including appreciation, occupancy rates, and net cash flow regardless of experience.
The platform's transaction ledger allows you to view real estate-related expenses and income categories without the need to add metrics.
This allows you to view and analyze metrics immediately so you can make critical decisions about the properties you manage.
See Related: 9 Best Rental Income Trackers (Manage Real Estate Efficiently)
Pros of Landlord Studio
Easy to use
Our Landlord Studio review discovered that most users love the platform's ease of use and intuitiveness. While simplicity is at the platform's core, it doesn't take away from how effective and powerful its features are.
Accessibility on multiple platforms without compromising features is also one of Landlord Studio's greatest strengths.
Excellent customer service
Landlord Studio's stellar customer service is the most praised among all reviews. The platform comes with a live chat and email feature where replies are always prompt and helpful.
Automation
Automated expense tracking and tenant management make landlord's lives considerably easier, with a lot of reviews expressing how better “organized” they are after using the app. A lot of users love how much time they have freed to focus on more important things.
Cons of Landlord Studio
Limited features
Landlord Studio pales in comparison to other property management software when it comes to a variety of features. Users are looking for the ability to accept online payments and better filtering features, among others.
Not for commercial properties
While this is a given, the fact that Landlord Studio can only handle residential rental properties put it behind other property management software.
Landlord Studio review: Is Landlord Studio worth the price?
When compared to other platforms, Landlord Studio is worth the investment as it focuses on accounting, bookkeeping, and tenant screening. The platform can also be used to screen tenants while staying on top of financial tracking.
This specialty puts it ahead of other types of software such as QuickBooks when it comes to property management.