3 Tips for Choosing Affordable Housing Software

Owners and manager of affordable housing properties have unique needs beyond those encountered at their conventional counterparts. These needs can range from ensuring compliance with state requirements to being prepared for changes to HUD programs such as the upcoming TRACS 202D (Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System) modifications. Selecting the right affordable housing software solution can relieve much of the stress around affordable housing compliance. Here’s three tips to consider the next time you begin the selection process for your affordable housing software:

• Focus on compliance – Affordable housing software solutions by their very nature are developed with maintaining compliance to the ever changing world of managing HUD programs at your property. Ensure that your solutions provider is proactively developing product enhancements that help you take advantage of every opportunity to streamline compliance reporting and keep your solution of choice current with the ever-changing affordable housing management and compliance requirements.
• Remember the front line – Include the team members that will be using the solution in the field on a day-to-day basis in your selection process. Surveying team members on their needs and pain points is a great way to begin the process of collecting requirements. Consider creating a team that consists of the various user roles in your company whose primary goal is capturing all of the pain points, solution requirements, and nice-to-haves that your affordable housing property management staff would like.
• Training, training, training – A priority within your selection criteria should include available training options that can ensure that once you’ve selected an affordable housing property management software solution, your staff can be effectively and efficiently trained so you minimize problems that arise after your solution is launched to the company. And remember that every learner is different so training delivery methods should be heavily considered. Training offerings to inquire about should include onsite learning, hosted and self-paced online training, thorough help documentation, and on-demand tutorials.
• Bonus tip – Every company is different and your needs can change throughout the lifetime of your chosen solution. Be sure that your affordable housing software provider offers flexible professional services options so that the configuration or integration you’re looking for doesn’t put an undue burden on your IT team.

For more information about affordable housing property management software available from MRI Software, contact us.