What is the best property management software for a portfolio with tenants and leases?
Yardi Voyager is the best property management software for a large portfolio with tenants and leases, because it puts leasing, accounting and maintenance in one system and is sold in editions for each property type. A custom system built by Black Badger ranks second, usually built beside the accounting you keep, for the tenant requests, vendor work and owner reporting that your portfolio handles its own way.
Published per-user price on the Essential and Premium plans
View-only, requester and third-party users need no paid license
Mobile offline mode and a request portal start at Professional
Multi-site, SSO and API access are held to the quoted Enterprise plan
Implementation packages are a separate cost
Premium shows only 30 days of analytics history
The ranking, entry by entry
1 Yardi Voyager
Best for large or mixed portfolios that want one system of record
For a property manager the lease is the central record, and Yardi Voyager is the one product on this list sold as property management software. Leasing, accounting and maintenance sit in one system, and Yardi sells separate editions for residential, commercial, affordable housing, condo and HOA, and single family homes. Yardi positions it for larger or more complex portfolios and points smaller operators to its Breeze product.
Watch for. Voyager has no list price. Yardi says pricing is modular and set by portfolio size, the modules needed and the implementation tier, so the quote depends on choices you make.
How it charges
Quoted by portfolio size, modules and implementation tier
Main limit
Modular, so cost depends on portfolio size and modules chosen
Best for managers whose tenant service and reporting are their own
We publish this guide and build custom software, and for property managers we rank a custom build second with a clear boundary. We would not tell a large portfolio to rebuild lease accounting. Black Badger builds the parts that tenants, vendors and owners use. Those are a tenant portal for requests, vendor dispatch with your approval limits, inspections, and owner reports in your format, connected to the accounting system that stays in place.
Watch for. The scope has to say exactly which records the accounting system owns and which the new system owns. We settle that in discovery, before anything is built.
How it charges
One-time build scoped in writing, then running costs such as hosting
Main limit
Needs a scoping call first, and suits companies of 50 or more employees
Best for property operators focused on vendor-run maintenance
Corrigo ranks third for property managers. JLL sells it to multi-site property operators that dispatch outside service providers. We have no vendor fact that it handles leases or tenant accounting, so we rank it as the maintenance side of a portfolio. That makes it a companion to a product like Voyager more often than a replacement for one.
Watch for. Pricing is quote-based and depends on deployment scale, users, integrations and service level. Raise the connection to your property accounting system in the first conversation.
How it charges
Quoted by scale, users, integrations and service level
Main limit
Optional modules and professional services cost extra
Best for owners of large buildings with heavy plant and lease records
IBM Maximo Application Suite is fourth. It is asset management first, which suits an owner of large buildings with heavy mechanical plant. It appears on a property list because IBM sells Space Management and Lease Management as applications in the suite. Both are priced separately from the Maintenance Essentials edition, which has a published starting price, and the whole suite is licensed through AppPoints.
Watch for. Ask IBM for the AppPoints needed for maintenance, space and lease together. The published starting price covers one application for up to 25 users.
How it charges
Licensed by AppPoints, on a 12-month minimum subscription
Main limit
Essentials Maintenance is capped at 25 users and one environment
Best for building portfolios with many occupants submitting requests
FMX ranks fifth. It fits an organization such as a building portfolio where many people submit requests and a smaller maintenance staff responds. For a property manager that maps to occupants raising requests without a paid license, since request-only users are not billable. We have no vendor fact that it holds leases or tenant accounting, so we rank it as a maintenance tool only.
Watch for. A one-time implementation fee applies and standard contracts renew annually. Vendors are not billable users, which helps if contractors close their own work.
How it charges
Quoted by billable users and add-ons, plus an implementation fee
Main limit
One-time implementation fee, with a quote driven by users and add-ons
Best for property teams with their own technicians on site
UpKeep is sixth on a property list. It is a CMMS for a maintenance team, and a property manager with its own building engineers can run their work on it at a published per-user price on the Essential and Premium plans. Requester users need no paid license, though the external request portal starts at the quoted Professional plan. Like FMX it is a maintenance tool, and the lease stays somewhere else.
Watch for. Multi-site module support is listed only on Enterprise. A portfolio of many buildings should ask for that price before it tests the cheaper plans.
How it charges
Per user on lower plans, higher plans quoted
Main limit
Multi-site, SSO and API access are held to the quoted Enterprise plan
We ranked for a property manager or owner with 50 or more employees and a portfolio large enough to have leasing staff, accounting staff and maintenance staff. Whether the option holds the lease counted first. After that we ranked on how well it serves the maintenance and tenant service side of a portfolio beside a system that does.
Only one product in our fact base is sold as property management software. The others are facilities and maintenance tools, and the entries say where our vendor facts stop.
Questions buyers ask
Is Yardi Voyager the same as Yardi Breeze?
No, Yardi Voyager is not the same as Yardi Breeze. Yardi positions Voyager for larger or more complex portfolios and points smaller operators to Breeze. The per-unit prices that appear on Yardi pages belong to Breeze. Voyager pricing is modular and quoted.
Does a portfolio on Yardi Voyager need separate maintenance software?
A portfolio on Voyager does not always need separate maintenance software, since Voyager includes maintenance alongside leasing and accounting. Portfolios add a separate tool when vendor dispatch, inspections or tenant requests need more than Voyager provides. That tool can be a product such as Corrigo or a custom system built to exchange data with your accounting.
Should a property manager build a custom lease accounting system?
A property manager should rarely build a custom lease accounting system, and we would say so in the first conversation. Lease accounting is well served by products. The custom work worth doing is around lease accounting, in tenant service, vendor management, inspections and owner reporting, where every portfolio does things its own way.