Avail Overview
Built by two landlords in 2012, Avail is an all-in-one property management software that helps you run your rental business from a single platform. Think of it as a digital command center for landlords. It can help you create and syndicate listings, manage applications and leases, collect rent, track maintenance requests, keep financial records, analyze rental markets, and more.
Best of all, Avail has a substantial free version, making it one of the best property management platforms for beginners who need the essentials. Say goodbye to juggling spreadsheets and paper documents and sign up for a free Avail account today to start streamlining your rental business. It’ll free up more of your time and open the door to scaling your property portfolio.
What we like about Avail
- True free-for-the-landlord membership, including vacancy listings, tenant screening, online rent collection, state-specific leases, bookkeeping, and maintenance tracking. Applicants pay for screening reports and tenants pay $2.50 per ACH rent payment.
- Listing a rental vacancy on Avail means your ad is automatically published on 12 listing sites, including Zumper, Padmapper, Realtor.com, Redfin, Apartments.com, and apartmentlist.com.
- Unlimited Plus members get faster rent payment processing, waived ACH payment fees, and customizable applications and lease documents.
- CreditBoost allows tenants to build their credit history by reporting on-time payments to the bureaus.
Pricing
Avail has two pricing tiers: “Unlimited” and “Unlimited Plus.”
Unlimited is free and includes most of Avail’s features. The main catch is that tenants are charged a $2.50 fee per bank transfer when they pay rent. Of course, you can discount rent by this amount to indirectly assume the cost, but either way, it’s an extra charge you must factor in.
Unlimited Plus costs $9 per rental unit and waives the bank transfer fee for tenants. It also comes with faster bank transfers (1 business day instead of 3-5), a property website, more customization for applications and leases, and 2x faster customer support response times.
Features
Avail has a comprehensive set of property management features that cover all of your basic landlord needs.
Listing Syndication
Instead of manually listing your rentals on different platforms, Avail lets you publish them across 20 rental sites at once—including Realtor.com®, Apartments.com, and Redfin. All you have to do is enter some basic details about the rental and lease and upload some property photos.
There’s also a promoted listing feature that gives premium placement to listings already published on Realtor.com®, Zumper, and PadMapper through Avail’s syndication.
Online Applications
Avail has a built-in template for online rental applications that you can share with leads or allow renters to submit directly from Realtor.com—Avail’s partner site, whose parent company, Move, Inc., acquired Avail in 2020.
The application asks for personal and contact information, employment and income verification, rental history, and five standard background questions. However, with Unlimited Plus, you can also add custom questions.
Once completed, applications can be viewed from a central dashboard, where you can approve or deny them and send applicants automated responses accordingly.
Avail also checks landlord references for you by emailing past landlords, lets applicants schedule tours, and has a roommate-friendly version of the application for adding co-applicants.
Tenant Screening
Avail lets you run three different tenant screening reports through TransUnion: a credit report, a criminal history check, and an eviction report. You can request any or all of these directly from your Avail dashboard at an additional cost that varies by location due to state laws.
According to Avail, tenant screening fees can cost anywhere from $25 to $75. However, you can get a discount if you bundle all three reports. For example, if one background check costs $30 per applicant, you may be able to bundle all three for $55 per applicant.
Whether you cover these fees or require the applicant to pay them is up to you. Either way, these tenant screening reports are a great way to weed out risky applicants and feel more confident about the ones you approve.
Digital Leases
Avail offers state-specific and lawyer-reviewed lease templates. With Unlimited, you can set the rent amounts, due dates, additional fees, security deposits, pet policies, and renters insurance requirements. With Unlimited Plus, you can further customize clauses and even add your own.
In addition, you and your tenants can e-sign leases directly within Avail to avoid the back-and-forth of exchanging paper documents for signatures. Furthermore, Avail keeps secure copies of all your leases for you and your tenants to reference, amend, or renew.
Rent Collection
With Avail, collecting rent, deposits, and fees is easy. The platform lets tenants pay online via ACH transfer (for $2.50 per transaction on the Unlimited plan or for free on Unlimited Plus) and via debit or credit card (for a 3.5% processing fee regardless of your plan).
From our experience, ACH payments land in your bank account within 4-7 days, while credit card payments typically take 2 days. However, with Unlimited Plus, you can see payments in your account in as little as 1 day (though sometimes it still takes up to 3).
To help prevent late payments, Avail also lets you send automated payment reminders to tenants, and it gives them the option to schedule payments so they don’t forget. Otherwise, you can set up automatic late fees and control the late fee amount and grace period.
Accounting and Tax Prep
Avail syncs rent payments and any maintenance expenses reported on Avail work orders so you can stay on top of bookkeeping. Any one-time transactions collected outside of Avail can also be added manually, and you can always delete or edit logs to keep them up to date.
This makes it easy to track your rental properties’ financial performances and prepare for tax season. By categorizing expenses, for example, you can more easily claim deductions. Plus, Avail issues 1099-K forms each year and lets you export transactions as spreadsheets as often as you want.
Maintenance Tracking
Avail’s maintenance tracking features help keep your property in good condition and your tenants happy. Residents can submit work orders through their online accounts, and you’ll be notified by email. You can then diagnose the problem from the attached photos and respond.
Meanwhile, you can loop in contractors and update tenants on the status of their work order. Once finished, you’ll have a permanent record of the work and its cost for future reference.
Rent Price Analysis
Ever wondered what the optimal rent price for your property is? Avail helps you analyze your local market to find out. For example, it lets you view up to 10 comparable nearby rentals, shows rental trends over the past 6 years, and tells you average vacancy rates in your county.
Avail aggregates this data from multiple listing services (MLSs), property managers, real estate investment firms, technology providers, and other sources.
User Experience
Overall, Avail is pretty user-friendly.
Here’s what it looks like to create an account for the first time:
First, you must identify as a landlord or a tenant.
Next, you’ll be asked to provide your full name and email address and set a password. From there, you must enter and verify your phone number with a 6-digit code sent via text.
Finally, you’ll answer a series of questions about your rental portfolio to tailor the platform to your needs. Eventually, you can pay for the Unlimited Plus plan or stick with the free version.
Customer Support
If you ever run into issues or need help navigating your Avail account, you have many options:
- Avail’s customer care phone line (312-292-9347) is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time.
- The company also has a dedicated customer care email at support@avail.co and a 24/7 chatbot on its website.
- For answers to common questions, you can visit Avail’s Community Forum or Help Center, which includes dozens of educational articles and video tutorials.
Summary
Ultimately, Avail is a powerful property management platform for small landlords on a budget. With most of its features available for free, it’s hard to beat Avail on price. And if you’re still working with spreadsheets and paper documents, don’t overthink it. Sign up for Avail today to take your rental business to the next level.
Methodology
We evaluated Avail based on the information on its website and our personal experience using the product. We mainly judged it on pricing, features, user experience, and support options. See our complete list of reviews and comparisons.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and Landlord Gurus may earn a commission. Our mission remains to provide valuable resources and information that helps landlords manage their rental properties efficiently and profitably. We link to these companies and their products because of their quality, not because of the commission.
