Introducing PropsManager: The Property Management Software Built by Landlords, for Landlords

By PropsManager Team · Software Comparison · Jun 03, 2024

Let's cut straight to it. Managing rental properties with spreadsheets, shoebox receipts, and text messages is costing you money. Not hypothetically — real dollars, every single month. The average self-managing landlord spends 15 to 20 hours per month on administrative tasks that software can handle in seconds. At even a modest $50/hour valuation of your time, that's $750 to $1,000 a month you're lighting on fire.

We built PropsManager because we lived that reality. Chasing down late rent payments. Losing track of maintenance requests scribbled on Post-it notes. Spending entire weekends reconciling bank statements against a mess of Venmo transactions and money orders. There had to be a better way.

There is. And today, we're officially launching it.

Why We Built PropsManager

Here's the honest truth: most property management software wasn't designed for people like us. The enterprise platforms — Yardi, AppFolio, RealPage — are built for massive management companies running 500+ units. They're powerful, sure. They're also bloated, expensive, and about as intuitive as filing your own taxes.

On the other end, you've got the bare-bones tools. A glorified spreadsheet with a login screen. Maybe they'll let you send an invoice through email. Perhaps they'll track a maintenance request if you're lucky. But the moment you need real reporting or want to automate anything meaningful, you hit a wall.

PropsManager sits right in the sweet spot. We designed it from scratch for independent landlords and small property management companies running anywhere from 1 to 200 units. Every feature exists because a real landlord — not a product manager in a WeWork — asked for it.

What PropsManager Actually Does

No buzzwords. No vague promises about "leveraging synergies." Here's exactly what you get when you sign up.

Automated Rent Collection That Actually Works

This is the big one. Late rent is the number one headache for every landlord I've ever talked to. The National Apartment Association estimates that the average cost of processing a single late payment — including administrative time, communication, potential legal notices, and cash flow disruption — runs between $50 and $150.

PropsManager eliminates most of that friction. Tenants get automatic payment reminders before rent is due. They can pay via ACH bank transfer or credit card right from their tenant portal. The money hits your account, and the system automatically records it, updates the ledger, and sends a receipt.

No more "I forgot." No more "the check is in the mail." No more driving to the bank to deposit money orders on your lunch break.

If a tenant is late, PropsManager automatically applies your late fee policy — whether that's a flat $50 fee on day 6 or a per-day penalty that starts accruing on day 2. You set the rules once, and the system enforces them consistently across every unit you own. That alone removes dozens of awkward conversations per year.

Want to go deeper on this topic? Check out our post on automating rent collection and ending paper checks for good.

Maintenance Request Tracking That Keeps You Sane

A tenant texts you at 11 PM about a leaky faucet. You make a mental note. By morning, you've forgotten. Three weeks later, the leak has caused $2,800 in water damage to the subfloor.

Sound familiar? It shouldn't have to be this way.

With PropsManager, tenants submit maintenance requests through their portal. They can attach photos, describe the issue, and even mark the urgency level. You get notified instantly. Every request lives in a centralized dashboard where you can assign it to a contractor, track its status, and maintain a complete paper trail.

No more lost texts. No more "he said, she said" disputes about whether an issue was reported. Every request is timestamped, documented, and linked to the specific unit. When tax season arrives or a dispute goes to court, you've got an airtight record.

Financial Reporting That Makes Your CPA Smile

If you've ever dumped a year's worth of transactions into a spreadsheet the week before April 15th, you know the pain. PropsManager generates real-time financial reports — income statements, expense tracking, cash flow analysis — broken down by property, by unit, or across your entire portfolio.

Every rent payment, every maintenance expense, every late fee is automatically categorized and recorded. Export to CSV or PDF in one click for your accountant. Track your actual ROI per property instead of guessing. Know exactly which units are profitable and which ones are bleeding money, so you can make informed decisions about rent adjustments, renovations, or sales.

For a deeper look at how to think about the numbers, our guide on calculating ROI on your rental property breaks it all down.

Tenant Portal That Reduces Your Phone Calls by 80%

Every tenant gets access to their own portal. From there, they can:

• Pay rent — on their schedule, with automatic or one-time payments
• Submit maintenance requests — with photos and descriptions
• View their lease — no more "can you send me a copy?" emails
• See payment history — so they stop asking if last month's rent cleared
• Communicate with you — through a documented messaging system instead of scattered texts

The result? Your phone stops ringing for routine stuff. Tenants are happier because they have self-service access to everything they need. And every interaction is recorded, which protects both parties.

We wrote about the broader benefits of this approach in why online tenant portals are a game-changer for landlords.

Lease Management and Document Storage

Paper leases sitting in a filing cabinet are a liability waiting to happen. PropsManager stores every lease digitally, tracks expiration dates, and sends you alerts 60 and 30 days before a lease is up for renewal. No more accidentally letting a lease lapse into month-to-month because you lost track of the date.

You can also store related documents — move-in inspection reports, addendums, insurance certificates, correspondence — all linked to the specific tenant and unit. Everything's searchable, backed up, and accessible from any device.

PropsManager vs. The Old Way: A Side-by-Side Comparison

That last row is the one that really matters. The difference between 20 hours and 3 hours per month is 204 hours per year. That's over five full work weeks you're getting back. What's that worth to you?

Who PropsManager Is For

We didn't build PropsManager to be everything for everyone. We built it to be perfect for a specific group of people.

Independent Landlords with 1 to 50 Units

You're the backbone of the rental market. You own a duplex, a handful of single-family homes, maybe a small apartment building. You manage them yourself because hiring a property management company at 8-10% of gross rent doesn't make financial sense for your portfolio size. But you're drowning in admin work.

PropsManager gives you the tools of a professional management company at a fraction of the cost. Check our pricing page — you'll see we're not trying to be the most expensive option. We're trying to be the most valuable.

Small Property Management Companies

If you manage properties for other owners and you're running operations on a patchwork of tools — maybe QuickBooks for accounting, Google Sheets for tracking tenants, and your personal phone for maintenance calls — PropsManager consolidates everything into one platform. One login. One dashboard. One source of truth.

Landlords Who Value Their Time

Maybe you're a W-2 employee who landlords on the side. Maybe you're retired and don't want property management to become a full-time job. Maybe you've got young kids and Saturday morning should not be spent reconciling rent payments.

Whatever your situation, if you've ever thought "there has to be a more efficient way to do this," you're who we had in mind.

What Makes PropsManager Different

There are other property management tools out there. We know that. Here's why we think you'll stick with us.

Built for Speed and Simplicity

PropsManager isn't a bloated dinosaur wrapped in a modern skin. It was built from the ground up with modern web technology, which means it's fast. Pages load instantly. Actions complete in real time. You won't be sitting there watching a spinner while the system thinks about whether to display your dashboard.

Pricing That Doesn't Punish Growth

A lot of platforms charge per unit. So you're paying $5 or $8 per unit per month, and suddenly at 30 units you're looking at $240/month for software. PropsManager offers straightforward, predictable plans that don't penalize you for growing your portfolio. Visit our pricing page to see exactly what it costs — no hidden fees, no surprise charges, no "contact sales" runaround.

Real Support from Real People

When you email us, a person responds. Not a chatbot. Not a ticket that goes into a queue and gets answered in 72 hours. We're a small, focused team and we treat every landlord's problem like it's our own — because honestly, it probably was at some point.

Continuous Improvement

We ship updates regularly. And we don't just build features in a vacuum — we listen to what our users are asking for and prioritize accordingly. Check our features page to see everything that's available today, and know that the list keeps growing.

Getting Started Takes 15 Minutes

No joke. Here's the process:

1. Sign up and create your account
2. Add your properties — address, unit details, rent amounts
3. Invite your tenants — they'll get an email to set up their portal
4. Configure your settings — late fee policies, payment methods, notification preferences
5. Sit back — rent starts flowing in automatically next month

You don't need to migrate data from another system (though we can help if you want to). You don't need a consultant to set things up. If you can use email, you can use PropsManager.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Here's something landlords rarely calculate: the cost of NOT having proper systems in place.

• Late rent: The average landlord with 10 units loses $3,000 to $5,000 per year in delayed and missed rent payments, according to TransUnion's rental data.
• Maintenance surprises: A $200 repair that goes unreported for three months can turn into a $3,000 insurance claim. Documentation prevents this.
• Tax season chaos: Landlords without organized records leave an average of $2,000 to $4,500 in deductions on the table every year because they can't find receipts or don't categorize expenses properly.
• Vacancy costs: A unit sitting empty for one extra month because you missed a lease renewal date costs you the entire month's rent. On a $1,500/month unit, that's $1,500 gone.

Add it all up, and the average self-managing landlord is leaving $8,000 to $15,000 on the table annually due to disorganization and manual processes. PropsManager pays for itself in the first month.

A Quick Look at What's Coming Next

We're not resting on our laurels. Here's a taste of what's on our roadmap:

• Integrated tenant screening — run background checks and credit reports without leaving the platform
• Owner reporting portals — for property managers who need to send monthly reports to property owners
• Vendor management — track your contractors, their rates, their availability, and their performance history
• Market rent analysis — see how your rents compare to similar properties in your ZIP code

We share these not as empty promises but because we want you to know that PropsManager is a platform you can grow with. What works for your 3-unit portfolio today will still work when you're at 50 units.

Explore More PropsManager Resources

Looking for the right property management software? Check out our in-depth guides:

• Compare Property Management Software — See how PropsManager stacks up against Buildium, AppFolio, Rent Manager, and Propertyware.
• Software for Small Landlords — Built for landlords managing 1–50 units without the enterprise price tag.
• AI-Powered Property Management — Discover how automation can save you 5–10 hours per week.
• Solutions for Property Managers — Scale from 50 to 500+ units without scaling your costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PropsManager hard to set up?

Not at all. Most landlords are fully up and running within 15 to 20 minutes. You add your properties, set your rent amounts and late fee policies, and invite your tenants by email. There's no technical knowledge required and no data migration necessary to get started. If you do need help, our support team will walk you through it personally.

How much does PropsManager cost?

We offer transparent, straightforward pricing that scales with your needs — not punitive per-unit fees that drain your margins as you grow. Visit our pricing page to see current plans. We also offer a free trial so you can test everything before committing a single dollar.

Can my tenants really pay rent through the platform?

Yes. Tenants can pay via ACH bank transfer or credit card directly through their portal. Payments are automatic (or manual, if the tenant prefers), and every transaction is recorded in your financial dashboard instantly. No more chasing checks or making bank runs.

What if I already use other software for accounting or communication?

PropsManager is designed to be your single source of truth, but it plays nicely with your existing workflow too. Financial data exports easily to CSV for import into QuickBooks, Xero, or any other accounting software. You won't have to rip and replace everything on day one.

Is my data secure?

Absolutely. PropsManager uses industry-standard encryption, secure authentication, and regular backups. Your financial data, tenant information, and documents are protected with the same security standards used by major financial institutions. We take data privacy seriously — it's not an afterthought.

Ready to Stop Managing Properties Like It's 1997?

Look, we get it. Change is hard. That spreadsheet you've been using for six years feels comfortable, even if it's costing you thousands in lost efficiency and missed revenue.

But here's the thing. Every month you wait is another month of chasing payments, losing receipts, and spending your weekend on admin work instead of finding your next deal — or just enjoying your life.

PropsManager was built to give independent landlords and small property managers the tools they need without the enterprise price tag or complexity. Real automated rent collection. Real maintenance tracking. Real financial reporting. All in one place.

Start your free trial today and see the difference in your first month. Or if you'd like a personal walkthrough, reach out to our team for a demo — we'll show you exactly how PropsManager fits your portfolio.

Your tenants are waiting to pay rent online. Let's make it happen.