[Editor’s note: This is part of the category product review series for the small landlord property management software sector. Originally published in the Geek Estate Mastermind.]

Syndication is a necessary component of succeeding for any property management software vendor, short of a massive built-in audience of renters. After all, a landlord’s goal is to find a tenant for their property as soon as possible—which generally requires advertising a rental listing far and wide.

The five companies covered in the mini-series: Zumper Pro, Airbnb, Avail, Cozy, Zillow Rental Manager. All except Airbnb do some level of syndication of long-term rentals. RentecDirect and TurboTenant are also included below as a result of membership in the Mastermind.

Below is a snapshot of property management software vendors’ syndication partners…

Note: I am keeping an updated spreadsheet available to members of the Geek Estate Mastermind. If you work for a property management software provider and wish to have your company included, please have your company’s founder apply/join.

It’s true that those who own the marketplace (demand) and own the tools have an unfair advantage when it comes to serving landlords. Thus, Zumper and Zillow do hold a strategic customer acquisition advantage compared to Cozy and Avail due to traffic and brand goodwill generated from their rental search products.

Zillow Group, Realtor.com, and CoStar all have significant resources to deploy. However, one significant challenge is getting those leadership teams on board with focusing on low-value (free, in most cases) landlords. They all have larger revenue streams elsewhere, so it’s unclear when, or if, rentals will move up the priority list. Redfin is the dark horse in this race. It seems inevitable that it will eventually broaden its rentals work beyond WalkScore.