Resident capitalizes on appeal of new software

Inspiration for the program – called LandlordMax – came after commiserating with fellow real estate investors in Los Angeles about the lack of easy, but inexpensive property management software, explains creator Stephane Grenier. “They were looking for it for their own properties, and it was either too expensive, too big or they had to do it in Excel, which they didn’t really want to learn how to do,” he recounts.

Grenier, who holds a degree in computer science and has done consultant work in cities like Calgary and L.A., eventually returned to Ottawa after his globe-trotting to launch LandlordMax Software Inc. in 2003.

The program administers most areas of the property management sphere, including accounting, work orders, tenants, vendors, buildings, units, receipts and invoicing, Grenier explains..

But even with all of its useful functions, “the unique selling point we focused on right from the very beginning was (it had) to be the easiest to use,” Grenier says. “The people I was talking about – the people I knew who were real estate investors in L.A. – they were basically telling me that if you had to pay for it, it was really hard to use. So every single feature has been made to be as explicitly easy.”

LandlordMax has taken off in popularity since its inception four years ago, explains Grenier, who also keeps an official blog at www.followsteph.com to document the program’s success and discuss real estate and business issues.

The largest company currently using the software manages more than 500 tenants, he says. A city in British Columbia – though he’s not allowed to divulge the name – also employs the software, as do several U.S. universities to operate their student housing.

The vast majority of the program’s sales are in the U.S. at 86 per cent, Grenier says, with international sales – including areas like Australia, Europe and Africa – at six per cent and Canada taking up the remaining eight per cent, something he calls a positive, but surprising development. “It’s becoming a lot bigger in the U.S., and the path I originally expected it to go has changed a lot,” Grenier continues, adding that even with the downturn in the American real estate market, the company is continuing to experience strong growth. “I suspect that it’s because a lot of the small real estate speculators, those trying to quickly flip a property or two for capital appreciation, are getting shaken out of the market and more serious real estate investors are starting to get back in.”

Glenn Scott, a local real estate investor who has used LandlordMax for two years, lauds the program as a huge time-saver. “It allows us to manage more properties, because whenever there’s a problem, a red flag comes up,” he continues. “We have ours set so that if a tenant’s missing rent, rather than us getting notified by our banker or someone else, it actually comes back to us and lets us know, not only did they miss it this month but they still owe us a little bit from last month.”

With sales of the program growing by the month – including the company’s one-day sales record, which was recently broken by 13 per cent – Grenier still has more up his sleeve, namely more enhanced versions of the LandlordMax program. “In every version, I’d say 90-plus per cent of all the new features have basically been derived from the customers,” he adds. “They keep saying, ‘Oh, this would be great, that would be great’ – and away we go.” For more information on the LandlordMax program, visit www.landlordmax.com.