I bought my first rental after learning from this community. I built a 12% management fee into the proforma and bought it with tenants in place. My wife and I self-managed the first few months from 330 miles away, hiring the snow plow, the plumber and the electrician ourselves, and it worked. Then both tenants moved out at the same time and we hired a property manager.

At first I was happy paying 10%. Then came the contract fee, the lock change fee, the placement fee, the deposit fee. Fine, I live far away. But when they billed an outrageous turnover and listed the units below market, I was done. I already knew the real work: build a bench of vendors, then get requests to them. Finding vendors and triaging tenant requests was the time consuming part.

So I built RentPorter around three ideas.

1. Build a trusted vendor bench, wherever the property is. RentPorter finds vendors near your property and you pick the ones you trust.

2. No logins. Nobody likes another login, so don't hand your tenant one. Your tenants text one number for repairs, photos, and rent reminders with your payment link. No new passwords.

3. Let routine stuff route itself. A tenant texts "I think we have mice." Porter asks the questions you would ask, texts your exterminator the address and details, and the exterminator takes the job by replying YES. You watch it happen instead of doing it. You choose which vendors get dispatched automatically and which wait for your OK.

Every request, photo and invoice lands on the property record, dated and sorted into Schedule E lines, so tax time is a download.

The beta, 10 spots:

• Free now, no card, and 12 months free once paid plans turn on.

• Every suggestion I build earns you another month, up to 24 months free total.

• After that, founding landlords pay $12 a month, month to month, for life.

This is a beta and it will not be perfect. I want self-managing landlords with 1 to 20 units who will give the number to a real tenant in the first 30 days, run a real request through it, and tell me straight: does this help, and if not, what would? If you don't run a request within a month, the spot goes to the next person.

Sign up at rentporter.com. When the 10 spots are gone, they're gone. Questions, reply here.

-Cameron