Landlords of 5–50 units - how do you actually keep track of everything?

Managing Your Property
1yFollow

Landlords of 5–50 units - how do you actually keep track of everything?

Matthew Fisher
Member since 2025 · 3 posts · 12 votes

Hey everyone - quick question for landlords managing properties without property managers:

How do you keep up with rent collection, late fees, lease expirations and renewals, maintenance requests and follow-ups, tenant info and docs and turnover planning?

I’ve got a few units and it feels like a mix of Google Sheets, texts, and my memory - which definitely breaks down when things get busy or units turn over.

I’m talking with a few other landlords about what a simple system might look like, and wondering if anyone here has found a good solution (or built your own stack)? Would you pay for something lightweight that pulls it all together?

Just trying to get a handle on what others are doing and whether this pain is common or I’m just disorganized 😅

12Reply
422 views

Most Popular Reply

Michael SmytheBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Metro Detroit · Member since 2023 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes
1y

@Matthew Fisher check out these for small portfolios:

Doorloop, Hemlane, Innago, RentRedi, Stessa, Avail, Apartments.com, TenantCloud, TurboTenant, Buildium

Logical Property Management4.9445 Reviews
WebsiteView Page
7Reply
See this reply in the discussion

36 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Charles ClarkBusiness Member
    Real Estate Broker · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2020 · 306 posts · 209 votes
    1y

    @Matthew Fisher

    You’re definitely not alone 😅 most small landlords juggle spreadsheets, texts, and notes until it gets overwhelming. A lightweight all-in-one system for rent, leases, and maintenance would save a ton of time. Curious—would you want it as an app or web dashboard?

    [email protected]414-719-6090
    Raise the Standard RE LLC54 Reviews
    View Page
    0Reply
  • Mike Dymski
    Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes
    10mo

    @Matthew Fisher what did you select?  I had demos with DoorLoop and Buildium today and am looking at Innago as well.

    1Reply
  • Melanie ThomasBusiness Member
    Real Estate Broker · San Antonio · Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 489 votes
    10mo

    I’d honestly recommend saving yourself the headache and hiring a professional property management company, especially one that already has a solid tech stack built out.

    When you work with a professional PM team, you’re not just outsourcing the day-to-day headaches like rent collection, renewals, and maintenance. You’re gaining systems that handle everything automatically. Most established companies already integrate things like online payments, lease automation, maintenance tracking, and performance reporting so nothing slips through the cracks.

    Plus, a good PM company keeps you compliant with local laws, maintains great tenant relationships, and helps protect your investment long term. It’s one of those things that seems like an expense at first but almost always pays for itself in reduced vacancy, better tenant retention, and peace of mind.

    Just my two cents, life’s too short to chase rent checks and repair invoices 😅

    Good luck & happy investing!

    [email protected]
    RentWerx Property Management4.73295 Reviews
    WebsiteView Page
    0Reply
  • Dave SpoonerPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2020 · 869 posts · 823 votes
    10mo

    @Mike Dymski, Dave from Innago here. We're active on BiggerPockets. Feel free to dm me if you have any questions or want to talk

    [email protected]
    0Reply
  • Dzianis Yukhniuk
    Member since 2026 · 5 posts · 0 votes
    2mo

    Reading through this, the pattern that jumps out is that the tool list is long but the complaint underneath is the same. Everything is "almost" all-in-one, so people end up taping a stack together, and the earlier comment about a tech stack swaying in the breeze nails it. At 5 to 50 units the piece that breaks first usually isn't rent or leases, since those are tidy rows. It's the maintenance thread: reported, photo, vendor scheduled, done, paid. For those running a stack now, which part actually falls out of the system and back into texts or memory?

    0Reply
  • Giuseppe Cavucci
    online · Member since 2026 · 99 posts · 44 votes
    1mo

    I hear you on the Sheets plus memory combo breaking down. For me the piece that actually bit me wasn't rent or leases, it was maintenance. I had zero idea when I'd actually need to replace the roof or the water heater until something failed, and by then it was an emergency expense instead of something I'd been setting money aside for.

    What ended up working was tracking the install date and expected lifespan for each major system per property, so I could see roughly how much I should be putting aside each month instead of guessing. Doesn't touch rent collection or lease renewals at all, but for the maintenance and reserve planning side specifically it's made a real difference.

    Curious what you and the others end up landing on for the rest of it (leases, docs, turnover), that's a lot to juggle even with a good system.

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free