Spreadsheet, PM software, or group chat — how do you track your portfolio?

Question

Every multi-unit landlord I've talked to hits the same wall eventually.

Not the tenants. Not the maintenance. The spreadsheet.

Whatever system holds your units, your leases, your maintenance requests  at some point it's held together by tabs and text messages. You become the API between your properties and your sanity.

I build custom software for service businesses, and real estate keeps showing me the same pattern: the portfolio scales, the tracking doesn't.

Curious how people here handle it, spreadsheet, off-the-shelf PM software, or the group chat method?

Naum Raz · Answer

I think the problem is, many software solutions are good at doing one or two things, that's why many people have multiple software subscriptions or use spreadsheets still. I am working on something right now (software), which is alpha, if you're interested, I would be happy to give a free access for some time in return for feedback.

Giuseppe Cavucci · Answer

The pattern both of you are describing (spreadsheet propped up by whoever happens to understand the tabs) tracks with what I've seen too. One thing I'd add: even within the "spreadsheet doing the parts nobody built software for" category, there's a difference between tracking what's active right now (leases, requests, who's doing what) versus tracking what's coming later (a system that's aging toward replacement). The first one breaks when the one person goes on vacation, like Andrea said. The second one breaks quietly, nobody notices the gap until something's already overdue.

Most of what I've seen people patch together handles the first kind fine. The second kind usually just doesn't exist until something forces it to.

Andrea Fernandes · Answer

This is the pattern I see most too — it's rarely one clean choice, it's a spreadsheet doing the parts nobody built software for, propped up by a group chat for whatever's happening right now. The break point usually isn't volume, it's when the one person who understands the tabs is out sick or on vacation and nobody else can make sense of it.

Are you seeing this exact pattern outside real estate too, or does it show up differently in the other service businesses you build for?