Azibo is a browser app to help property owner-operators who manage anywhere from five to 50 units get a handle on their finances, tenants and portfolio.
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Azibo is financial and operations software for independent real estate investors.
Platforms: Browser; mobile-responsive
Ideal for: Real estate investors, landlords, agents with investor clients
Top selling points:
- Integration of banking/financial operations
- Granular unit management
- Transparent, detailed bookkeeping
- Comprehensive reporting
- Top-notch UX; low learning curve
Top concern:
For now, its lack of a tenant-landlord communications feature. However, that is due for release in the coming months and should wrap a tight bow around this well-executed solution for small landlords.
What you should know:
Azibo is a browser app to help property owner-operators who manage anywhere from five to 50 units get a handle on their finances, tenants and portfolio. It offers a clean, spartan user interface that focuses on only what’s needed to know about the state of small rental property business and how to react to its many variables. Smartly, Azibo offers an internal banking solution through which it collects most of its revenue — the software is free. Users can link third-party banking, too. The software manages applications and offers a quick link to promote vacancies on whatever various outside tools owners use to find tenants. It easily tracks incoming payments, provides alerts for late payments and provides state-required leases (via RocketLawyer) or the ability to integrate custom leases. Its bookkeeping includes fee splitting, per-unit payment rules, vendor payment and oversight and a number of financial reports, including P&Ls and Schedule E filing.
Real estate agents who work with investor clients need to add Azibo to any list they keep to assist them. It’s a cut-and-dry, tightly focused experience that deprives the user of nothing when it comes to understanding the day-to-day of owning rental property.
Upon login, users are presented with a dashboard-based summary of their holdings, including a total number of units, reminders of vacancies, any received applications, pending payments, leases ending and other critical notices. One can work from the left-hand navigation, which offers access to features for properties, rent, accounts, outgoing payments, bookkeeping, reports and documents.
Users can categorize or name their properties according to legal entity, or LLC name, or whatever is best. Maybe it’s the street name or some sort of shorthand, which is common. “My tenant in Hightower gave notice.” And if a tenant is on their way out, Azibo offers a quick link for online applications to use on any vacancy advertising content. On that front, it offers partnerships with TransUnion and other credit and background check tools and works with RocketLawyer when users don’t feel like worrying about custom lease documents. It’s a smart partnership for a tool that targets small landlords, as worrying about compliance with state lease laws is not a headache anyone investor wants.
Azibo’s banking product offers the flexibility to link each property to a separate account, which leads to its ability to deftly control every incoming and outgoing payment and easily split trust and operating accounts, a mandate that often trips up new landlords. You can also get a debit card for each account.
Vendor payments, thus, are easily linked to the property to which their linked, which then cascades into Azibo’s reporting capability to plainly see what units are costing more to own. The software slides out a right-hand interface when financial tools are engaged, a clever UI tactic to ensure the user’s attention is on the numbers when it needs to be. Payments can be split, categorized and scheduled.
Rent payments can be controlled at the unit level, allowing tenants to pay in different periods with different methods and according to what may align with their paycheck, a common practice that can be hard to manage manually. You can also toggle on/off the requirement for renter’s insurance, and decide on pet fees or other charges quickly within each unit’s control panel.
This is yet another very solid entry into the fast-growing RentTech sector, within which I’ve seen a great deal of innovation of late, a byproduct of the housing market’s refusal to give way. Without digressing, I’ll say that tools like Azibo, Baselane, Home365, PayProp and of course, RentSpree, are really changing how large and small landlords run their operations. It helps them better accommodate and serve tenants and in a very real way, make more money. Combine these tools with investing solutions like Fractional and Ark7, and the result is a quickly evolving technological respiratory system helping to oxygenate the independent landlord market.
I’m intrigued to see where Azibo goes next, especially with its communication tools and future revenue models. This software is lightweight and easy enough to become a white-label solution for small property management firms, too.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
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