When you own or manage a multifamily property, you are the wearer of many hats….
When you own or manage a multifamily property, you are the wearer of many hats. Too much time spent advertising vacant units, manually processing maintenance requests, or collecting paper rent checks can bring business growth to a halt. One of the easiest ways to manage and organize the heavy workload is to select the right property management software. Leading the list of top real estate software providers is Yardi. Yardi offers a suite of services designed to simplify property management.
What does Yardi do?
Yardi is primarily an accounting platform, but also offers additional optional solutions aimed at pulling in other pieces of your property management puzzle. The accounting “backbone” can be integrated with the additional solutions of your choosing and service multiple operational needs such as:
- Accepting rent payments online
- Screening rental applicants
- Managing calendar tasks like lease expirations, tour dates, etc.
- Communicating with residents via text and email
- Boosting internet search visibility with online marketing and leasing tools
- Tracking more advanced items like construction projects and renovations and other business intelligences
Are stay-at-home mandates impacting your control of your business? Now is the perfect time to embrace a tool like Yardi to address your property management software needs.
From simple to-dos to more sophisticated initiatives, Yardi helps streamline property management so your teams can focus on growing your business—instead of drowning in details and manual administrative tasks.
Choose the Product Tier that’s right for your team.
Yardi offers three product tiers: Breeze, Breeze Premier, and Voyager. There are some key differences between these three “tiers” which are designed to address specific operational needs.
What are Breeze and Breeze Premier?
If you’re looking for something light and easy to use, Breeze and Breeze Premier are available for building owners and operators looking for a no-fuss software solution. Packed with out-of-the-box features, Breeze offers an intuitive, “refreshingly simple” user experience so you can get up and running with it in an instant.
What is Voyager?
For those who handle several multifamily properties and need a comprehensive platform that connects the entire portfolio, the most robust tier, Yardi Voyager, should fit the bill. Voyager, the most advanced offering, has a handful of exclusive features like:
- Revenue management
- Construction planning
- Advanced online marketing services like search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising assistance
You can customize this version down to the finest detail, giving you unparalleled control of the operational, financial, leasing, and maintenance side of your entire portfolio.
What does Yardi integrate with?
There are over 250+ interfaces within the ecosystem that you can easily “plug in” to the top tier offering: Yardi Voyager. Easily customize your experience using what’s known as an “API,” a technology that helps two applications from different vendors easily talk to each other. An API is the backbone behind the “Pay by PayPal” button you encounter across different web shopping carts. You’ve also seen APIs in action when restaurants and other businesses use an interactive Google Map to display their business location. Using this same technology, you can directly add tons of features into your Yardi experience.
There will always be a long list of cutting-edge tech solutions tenants come to ask your teams about. Maybe residents want to pay rent online or outfit their unit with convenient features like remote locks and lights. Your first thought might be, “not another software product to manage!” Luckily, flexible integrations make it easy for you and your team to utilize other tech solutions – like smart home automation, offering in-demand IoT features.
An IoT provider like IOTAS can enhance efficiencies and offer peace of mind by managing lighting and thermostatic schedules for vacant units, remotely locking and unlocking their doors, and offering self-guided tours for prospective residents. Once a unit is leased, your team can easily hand-off control of the HVAC, lighting, and smart locks to new residents. By integrating a smart home tech provider like IOTAS with Yardi resident data, move-in and move out events happen seamlessly with no need for double entry, units marked vacant are under the control of your onsite management and maintenance staff, and new resident onboarding is seamless.
What are some additional benefits to using Yardi?
Flexibility
Yardi makes it easy for you to make changes to your software offering as your business evolves. You don’t have to be pigeonholed into a single platform, so when your needs outgrow Breeze, you easily carry your data over to a Voyager upgrade.
Pricing
Yardi and Yardi Breeze start at the accessible price of $1 to $2/month, making it easy to get started quickly. Because of the vast customizability of Voyager, pricing varies based on the services you pick. This makes it easy for you to select a cost-effective package that fits the needs of your portfolio.
Customizability
Yardi Breeze Premier offers a handful of plugins like utility billing and maintenance request tracking. For full-fledged customization, and complete access to their library of hundreds of API add-ons, Voyager is your go-to.
Getting started with Yardi
Still unsure which version of Yardi is right for you? Consider these common FAQs:
- Need advanced accounting features? Select Breeze Premier or Voyager.
- Want on-the-go access? Consider Breeze and Breeze Premier for their intuitive mobile apps. As a cloud-based service, you can access all of your data from anywhere.
- Have limited IT experts on your team? Breeze and Breeze Premier are ready-to-go solutions that require zero IT intervention. Depending on more advanced setups of Voyager, you may need assistance from technical experts.
- Is your management team growing? With Breeze Premier and Voyager, you can control what different users are able to view and edit.
- Looking to grow your rental base and sign a younger demographic of tenants? It’s time to modernize your communication strategy. Millennials and Generation Z are unlikely to reach out via phone: four in five prefer to communicate via social media or text than call or visit in-person. With Yardi Breeze Premier and Yardi Voyager, you can connect with new residents through convenient methods like text to accelerate tour bookings.
A powerful property management system gives you the freedom to focus less on administrative tasks and more on what really matters—attracting new residents and supporting your current tenants. Whether you just need to cover the basics with Yardi Breeze or need a powerhouse system like Yardi Voyager, Yardi gives you unparalleled control and insight into your property portfolio.