Our real estate development company is about 6 months away from completing our biggest project to date - a 59 unit building located in Baltimore, MD.  As part of this development, we decided to enter a property management business, with our building being our first "client".  We do have the backbone of a very capable partner who's been managing smaller properties for us to date (4 - 6 unit buildings), but this property management initiative would be taking the concept to a new level.  

I'm really curious to hear from experienced property management operators about what's crucial to get right in the initial stages of launching such business.  Based on my review of prior threads, it sounds like Appfolio is software of choice for many professionals in the field.  Surely there are many other crucial layers to property management business that we should pay attention to, so any advice would be much appreciated. As an FYI, managing our own building is our first step; going forward, the goal would be to become a third party property manager to (hopefully) thousands of units.

Paul,  have a sibling who works for large REITs and when I asked about the software question one name that came up was Fusion.  I know Boston Capital uses this(huge property owner/manager).  I wish I could tell you more but that is what I have at the moment.  I will update when I have more info.

I know an agent who is a property manager and she uses "Buildium" and loves it. I believe there have been some threads here on it or other PM software. 

As you research your new business keep in mind that managing SFH or Small multi units will be different that mid size multi units like yours and probably a different business again from large multi complexes like 300+ units.

I currently managing 2 properties total 31 units and I have been using Rentec (www.rentechdirect.com), an online property management software because I have different part of the management team in different locations and they can all access this. As a owner you pay somewhere under $30 per month, I think.  

Jack Chu, CCIM

We use Buildium  , we are happy with it even though they don't have the bells and  whistles as other software do.i like it because their team listening to their customers and develop the software features  that are needed for them.its easy to work on it, their support is very helpful.