I stopped paying my property manager $7,200/year — here's how I self-manage 5 units
Hey everyone,
For about two years I was paying a property manager 10% on 5 units averaging $1,200/mo. That's $600/month, $7,200/year — and honestly, I was still doing half the work. Approving maintenance, chasing updates, answering tenant questions they forwarded to me anyway.
So I fired them and went full DIY. Here's what I learned after making the switch:
The hard part isn't the work — it's the organization.
Collecting rent, tracking leases, handling maintenance requests — none of it is complicated on its own. The problem is keeping it all straight across multiple units without things slipping through the cracks. I tried the spreadsheet route. It lasted about three months before I missed a lease renewal and had a tenant go month-to-month without realizing it.
What actually helped me get organized:
- Setting up automated rent reminders so I'm not the one texting tenants on the 1st
- Having one place to see which units are paid, which are late, and which leases are expiring
- Letting tenants submit maintenance requests somewhere I can actually track them instead of random texts at 11pm
- Keeping expenses categorized all year instead of scrambling at tax time
I ended up building a tool to handle all of this because the existing options were either way too expensive or built for 200+ unit portfolios.
What's everyone else using to stay organized? Curious if I'm the only one who failed at the spreadsheet method.
Most Popular Reply
I’ve never used a PM. It’s easy to do. I self manage my 33 properties and find it easy. Plus it saves me around 40k/year to do it myself. I’ll take that 40k/year and go buy another house with it. lol. 14 of them are out of state and those seem to be just as easy to self manage. I don’t do any of the work. I’m lazy. I just text someone to go fix whatever the issue is. Then I pay them when they’re done. I’ll send my handyman their number to coordinate a good time to fix whatever. Done. Today I had a fridge go out. I asked my tenant if they could go find a new fridge they wanted and I’d pay for it. He found a new one for $550 and sent me the receipt. I cash apped him the money. Done. Yesterday I had a rodent problem at a house. I sent the pest control people my tenant’s number to coordinate a day and time to come out. Done. I accept payments a number of ways including Cash App, Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, chime, cash and apartments.com. I try to put most of them on apartments.com since it’s easier. But several people hate using the pay portal on apartments.com for some reason. lol. So I don’t care how they pay me. Doesn’t matter. I do my leases with apartments.com too. It’s easy and free. And I test new handymen near my rentals when I have issues. I use a few different ones so I can get someone out there within 24 hours to fix problems. I don’t want to have to rely on one handyman or one hvac guy to fix something. I want it fixed today. Not 3 days from now when they have time. And so does my tenants. Especially if it’s the heater or AC. Taking care of my tenants in a timely manner is important to me. Turnovers will crush your profits so I treat my tenants well so they’ll stay with me for many years. I don’t want them to ever leave and I tell them they can stay forever when they move in. I work with them too, if they’re late on rent etc. I find if I take care of them and treat them well, they’ll take care of me with all the (tax free) $ they’re sending me monthly while paying off my mortgages.