Custom Property Management Software in Australia: Build vs Buy

For most Australian agencies, buying wins: PropertyMe lists plans from A$149 a month incl. GST per 100 properties, with trust accounting included. Build custom only when the software is your product or no platform fits your workflow, and scope trust accounting, PayTo or BECS rent collection and APP 8 duties for an offshore team from day one.

This guide is for two readers: principals of Australian property management agencies who are wondering whether their own platform would serve them better, and PropTech founders building a product for the Australian market. RAITHub builds custom software from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and has no office in Australia. Vendor and provider prices are quoted from their own pages, checked on 30 September 2026. Legal points are general information, not legal advice: confirm the current rule with your adviser and the regulator linked in each section.

Should an Australian agency build or buy property management software?

Buy, unless the software is what you sell or your workflow is one no platform models. Australian platforms already bundle the hardest part, trust accounting, with inspections, owner and tenant apps and direct-debit rent. Rebuilding that to save a subscription rarely pays.

Your situation	Usually the better fit	Why
A licensed agency managing residential rentals for owners	Buy an Australian platform	Trust accounting, reconciliations and audit reports are built, maintained and used by many agencies
A self-managing landlord with a few properties	A low-cost landlord tool or a spreadsheet	Agency platforms are priced and built for agencies
An agency whose platform does 95% of the job	Keep it; build a small add-on through its API	You pay only for the missing piece
Co-living, student beds, build-to-rent or mixed commercial	Trial platforms first; build if none models your unit	Room-level leases and shared bills are where generic tools strain
A PropTech startup selling software to agencies or landlords	Build	The product, data model and roadmap must be yours

How much does property management software cost in Australia?

PropertyMe, one widely used Australian platform, publishes its prices per 100 properties, including GST. Its figures are a useful yardstick; other platforms price differently, so compare at least three.

PropertyMe plan (as published)	Price incl. GST	Notes on the page
Basic	A$149 a month per 100 properties	Includes a "Complete trust accounting platform", inspections, owner and tenant apps and MePay Direct Debit
Standard	A$182 a month per 100 properties	Adds bank feeds, lease renewals, task automation and a Xero integration
Advanced	A$215 a month per 100 properties	Adds AI features and API read access
Premier	Contact us	Adds group reporting
Minimum	"All prices are for a minimum of 200 properties"	A start-up package with Basic features for up to 100 properties is listed at A$193 incl. GST

Source: PropertyMe pricing, checked 30 September 2026. Onboarding is offered as "tailored onboarding packages" without published prices.

At the 200-property minimum, Basic works out at A$298 a month, or about A$10,700 over three years; Standard at about A$13,100. Note that Advanced is the plan listing API read access, which matters if you plan to build an add-on rather than a replacement.

What does custom property management software cost in Australian dollars?

Published 2026 guides put a basic custom property management MVP at US$9,000 to US$22,000 and a full platform at US$70,000 to US$140,000 or more (Saigon Technology). At the Reserve Bank of Australia's rate of 0.6987 US dollars per Australian dollar on 29 September 2026 (RBA exchange rates), that is about A$12,900 to A$31,500 for an MVP and A$100,000 to A$200,000 for a full platform. These are market figures, not RAITHub quotes.

Those ranges are for generic property management. For an Australian agency product, two scope items can move the number more than any screen: trust accounting, and the rent collection rail. Both are covered below. Running costs, hosting, payment processing and upkeep come on top; a three-year view of them is worth doing before any build decision. For a quick range on your own scope, use the MVP cost estimator.

Does custom property management software in Australia need trust accounting?

If the software will handle rent or bond money that an agency holds for others, yes, and it is the scope item that decides the whole build. Trust accounting rules are set by each state and territory, and the software must produce the records and controls the agency's regulator and auditor expect.

Victoria is a useful example of how specific those rules get. According to Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Estate Agents (General, Accounts and Audit) Regulations 2018 set out the required accounting records, and its guidance says agents must:

• "balance your trust accounts and prepare statements each month", with verification within 14 days of month-end;
• update transaction records "by the end of the next business day";
• keep records for at least "seven years";
• keep a trust ledger for each client or transaction, alongside cash receipts, cash payments and transfer journals.

The same guidance lists requirements for computer systems: an audit trail showing "details before and after" any amendment, no negative balances without documentation, no deletion of accounts with a non-zero balance, and monthly backups stored separately. Those are engineering requirements, and they belong in the specification, not in testing.

Other states differ in their legislation, reporting and audit arrangements. For New South Wales, start with NSW property professionals guidance; for Queensland, the Office of Fair Trading. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm the current rules for each state you will operate in with your adviser and your trust account auditor before the data model is designed.

How do you build trust accounting into property software?

As an append-only ledger: every receipt, payment and transfer is a new row with a reference and a purpose, a mistake is corrected by a reversing entry, and nothing is ever updated or deleted. Month-end reconciliation then compares three independent totals: the bank statement, the cash book and the sum of all ledgers. That comparison is often called a three-way reconciliation.

-- Append-only trust ledger. Corrections are reversing rows, never updates.
CREATE TABLE trust_ledger_entry (
  id            bigint GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
  agency_id     uuid   NOT NULL,
  ledger_id     uuid   NOT NULL,   -- one ledger per owner, tenant or transaction
  entry_date    date   NOT NULL,
  amount_cents  bigint NOT NULL,   -- positive = receipt, negative = payment
  kind          text   NOT NULL CHECK (kind IN ('receipt', 'payment', 'transfer', 'reversal')),
  reverses_id   bigint REFERENCES trust_ledger_entry (id),
  reference     text   NOT NULL,   -- receipt number, PayTo or BECS reference
  purpose       text   NOT NULL,
  created_by    uuid   NOT NULL,
  created_at    timestamptz NOT NULL DEFAULT now()
);

-- The application role can add entries but never change or remove them.
REVOKE UPDATE, DELETE ON trust_ledger_entry FROM app_user;

-- Month-end check: any ledger below zero needs documented investigation.
SELECT ledger_id, SUM(amount_cents) AS balance_cents
FROM trust_ledger_entry
WHERE agency_id = $1 AND entry_date <= $2
GROUP BY ledger_id
HAVING SUM(amount_cents) < 0;

Around that table sit the parts that take most of the effort: receipting that numbers every receipt in sequence, disbursements to owners, a reconciliation screen that refuses to close a month that doesn't balance, reports in the formats your auditor asks for, and a test suite that proves each rule. Money is stored in integer cents, never floating point. The general append-only pattern is in how to design a SaaS audit log.

A founder should know one more thing before committing. RAITHub has not shipped a trust accounting system used under Australian rules, and PropDesk, its property management platform, was built with Stripe rent collection rather than trust accounting. What RAITHub brings is ledger, reconciliation and test engineering. Treat the regulatory design as a joint job with your adviser and auditor.

How should rent be collected: PayTo, BECS Direct Debit or cards?

For regular rent, bank rails usually beat cards on cost. On Stripe in Australia, PayTo and BECS Direct Debit are both priced at 1% + A$0.30, capped at A$3.50, while domestic cards are 1.7% + A$0.30, including GST (Stripe Australia pricing). On a A$2,400 monthly rent, the bank rails hit the A$3.50 cap and a domestic card costs about A$41.

Rail	How it behaves	What it adds to scope
PayTo	Tenant approves a mandate in their banking app; Stripe typically reports the final status within 60 seconds of authorisation	Mandate amount limits: several banks reject mandates over A$25,000 or with no maximum (Stripe PayTo docs)
BECS Direct Debit	Business-initiated debit under a Direct Debit Request; success or failure can take up to three business days	Delayed webhooks, pre-debit notices, and disputes a tenant can raise through their bank for up to 7 years (Stripe BECS docs)
Cards	Instant result	Higher fees; usually offered as a fallback, with any surcharge policy set by your adviser

For an agency product there is a second question before the first line of code: where the money lands. Rent held for owners typically has to reach a trust account, so whether funds may sit in a payment provider's balance first, and for how long, is a regulatory question. Put it to your adviser and your payment provider in writing before you design the payout flow.

RAITHub has shipped rent collection on Stripe in PropDesk, with late fees and payment plans; it has not shipped PayTo or BECS, so treat this section as engineering guidance on the same platform. How rent collection is built end to end is in building online rent collection, and how to test delayed payment methods and their webhooks is in testing payments and webhooks.

Can an offshore developer handle Australian tenant data under APP 8?

Yes, if the arrangement is set up for it, and the obligations stay with you. Under APP 8.1, before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient, an entity must "take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the recipient does not breach the APPs", and under section 16C the entity remains accountable for the recipient's handling of it (OAIC APP 8 guidelines).

Three points from the OAIC's guidance are worth knowing before the first call with any offshore team:

• Disclosure or use. The OAIC says giving information to an overseas contractor is generally a disclosure, but may be a use, outside APP 8, where the entity keeps "effective control" through a binding contract that limits the contractor's handling and preserves your right to access, change or retrieve the information.
• The small business exemption. The Privacy Act exempts many businesses with "an annual turnover of $3 million or less", but not all: operators of residential tenancy databases are covered regardless, as are businesses that trade in personal information (OAIC small business guidance).
• Contracts first. The OAIC points to "an enforceable contractual arrangement" as the usual way to show reasonable steps.

In practice, the engineering pattern that supports this is simple: production data stays in your own cloud accounts, in an Australian region if you choose; the development team works on seeded or de-identified data; production access is granted per task, logged, and removed. RAITHub works this way, signs the data-handling clauses your adviser asks for, and follows your controls. RAITHub is not certified to any standard and makes no compliance claim; whether your arrangement meets APP 8 is your adviser's call. Questions to put to any offshore vendor are in is it safe to hire a Bangladesh software agency, and how to answer a security questionnaire without a certificate is in your first security questionnaire without SOC 2.

What should the first release of an Australian property product include?

For a PropTech founder, the first release should do one job end to end: rent in, ledger right, maintenance routed. Features agencies take for granted in mature platforms can follow once paying customers ask.

Release	Include	Why then
First	Properties, tenancies, rent schedules in AUD, PayTo or BECS rent collection, a ledger, maintenance requests, owner and tenant web portals	This is what a customer pays for on day one
Second	Arrears reminders, lease renewal alerts, routine and ingoing/outgoing inspections, contractor access	Automation and evidence, once real tenancies are running
Before any agency holds money in it	Trust accounting to the rules of each state you sell into, reviewed with an auditor	The highest-risk module; it should never be rushed into a first release
Later	Accounting integrations, bond lodgement workflows, AI summaries	Each depends on partners, state processes and real demand

The tenant side of the portal is covered in tenant portal features tenants actually use, and maintenance routing in a maintenance request system that routes jobs to contractors.

What working hours overlap with a Dhaka team from Australia?

More than most offshore options. Dhaka is UTC+6 with no daylight saving, so a Sydney or Melbourne business day overlaps a Dhaka day by about 5 hours, falling to about 4 during Australian daylight saving from October to April. Brisbane, with no daylight saving, overlaps by about 5 hours all year, and Perth by about 7.

In practice that means a live afternoon call in Sydney is the Dhaka start of day, and the Dhaka team's afternoon work is waiting in a written handoff when you start the next morning. The working week is agreed per client, and weekly demos run in the overlap.

Why RAITHub for this

• Property management has been built. PropDesk covers Stripe rent collection with late fees and payment plans, maintenance routing to contractors, the full lease lifecycle and move-in and move-out inspections, across 4 user roles, with 5 daily automation jobs and 1,024 automated tests (PropDesk case study).
• Ledger discipline from other money systems. RAITHub also built TheSkinProof, the founder's own marketplace venture, with bKash, Nagad, SSLCommerz and cash on delivery, and 750+ automated tests. Money logic is tested before anything else.
• A useful overlap. About 5 hours with Sydney (4 in daylight saving) and 7 with Perth, plus written daily handoffs.
• Straight answers. No Australian office, no trust accounting shipped yet, no MLS-style feed integrations claimed. You get that in writing on the first call.
• Fixed scope and your IP. A free 15-minute technical audit, a written fixed quote, an NDA as standard, and all code assigned to you.

When you don't need us

• You run an agency and your platform works. Stay on it. At A$10,700 over three years for 200 properties on PropertyMe's Basic list price, no custom build competes on cost.
• You want a PropertyMe alternative, not a new product. Trial other Australian platforms; switching is cheaper than building.
• You need trust accounting built by a vendor that has shipped it under your state's rules. Choose a vendor with that track record.
• You need an Australian-based team or on-site work. RAITHub works remotely from Dhaka.
• You need native iOS and Android apps. RAITHub builds responsive web applications and does not offer mobile app development.
• You need legal, tax or tenancy advice. That is for your adviser; RAITHub builds the workflow the rules run in.

If you are building a property product for Australia, the SaaS development service covers multi-tenant builds for agencies, and the real estate industry page sets out what RAITHub builds for PropTech. If you are still deciding whether software for landlords should be bought at all, read property management software for small landlords. When you are ready, book the free 15-minute technical audit with the states you will operate in, how rent will move, and whether any agency will hold trust money in the product.

Vendor, provider and regulator pages checked on 30 September 2026. General information only; confirm legal points with your adviser.

Frequently asked questions

How much does property management software cost in Australia?

As one published example, PropertyMe lists A$149, A$182 and A$215 a month per 100 properties, including GST, with a 200-property minimum and a start-up package for up to 100 properties. Onboarding is quoted separately. Compare at least three platforms before you choose.

Should my agency build its own property management software?

Usually not. Australian platforms already include trust accounting, inspections and direct-debit rent, and a basic custom MVP alone is about A$12,900 to A$31,500 at published market rates. Build if you are selling software to agencies, or build a small add-on when one missing piece costs you real money.

Does custom property management software need trust accounting in Australia?

If it will handle money an agency holds for others, yes. Rules are set by each state and territory; Victoria, for example, requires monthly reconciliations and computer systems with audit trails that prevent deleting accounts with a balance. Confirm the rules for your states with your adviser and auditor.

Is PayTo or BECS Direct Debit better for rent collection?

Both suit recurring rent and cost the same on Stripe in Australia: 1% + A$0.30, capped at A$3.50. PayTo gives a result within about a minute of mandate approval; BECS can take up to three business days and carries a long dispute window. Many products offer both.

Can an offshore team work on Australian tenant data under APP 8?

It can, with the right arrangement. APP 8 requires reasonable steps, usually an enforceable contract, and section 16C keeps you accountable for the overseas recipient. Keeping data in your own cloud accounts and giving developers de-identified data reduces what is disclosed. Confirm your position with your adviser.

What time-zone overlap does a Dhaka team have with Australia?

About 5 hours with Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, dropping to about 4 with Sydney and Melbourne during daylight saving, and about 7 hours with Perth. Dhaka is UTC+6 with no daylight saving; the working week is agreed per client.

Has RAITHub built property management software?

Yes. RAITHub built PropDesk, a property management platform with Stripe rent collection, 4 user roles, 5 daily automation jobs and 1,024 automated tests. It has not shipped Australian trust accounting, PayTo or BECS, and says so before any quote.