# How to Build a Property Management Company to 250 Doors

- Author: Peter Lohmann (property management operator; owner of RL Property Management, Columbus, OH, 700+ doors)
- Published: 2026-11-02
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRbm-c9h5sA
- Course page: https://peterlohmann.com/courses/build-property-management-company-250-doors/
- Topics: Operations, Leadership, starting a property management company, hiring, trust accounting, systems, scaling

## Summary
This is the order I would build a residential third-party property management company in if I were starting over today. My company does over $3.5 million in revenue and manages over 700 doors. The course is for owners starting from zero or sitting at roughly 50 to 100 doors. It covers three stages. From 0 to 50 doors, the job is to set up and sell: get licensed, incorporate, open a trust account and an operating account, write a property management agreement and a lease, set up a domain, business email, and Google Business Profile, network with realtors and investors, choose PM software, buy the right insurance, learn the three core processes, and reconcile the trust account monthly with a triple tie-out. From 50 to 100 doors, the job is the first hire and first systems: hire one full-time employee per 50 to 60 doors, join NARPM, add software slowly, set up payroll and pay yourself a reasonable salary, secure physical keys, use digital forms, plan for after-hours maintenance, set up referral agreements, and move to a shared inbox. From 100 to 250 doors, the job is team, EOS, and workflows: consider an in-house maintenance tech and remote team members, read Traction and adopt EOS, document core workflows in workflow software, and set up Slack with clear norms.

## Key terms
- **Third-party property management:** managing rental homes you do not own, on behalf of property owners.
- **Trust account:** the bank account that holds owner and tenant funds that do not belong to the property management company, including rent deposits, typically security deposits, and owner contributions.
- **Operating account:** the bank account that holds the property management company's own money. Management fees and leasing fees move from the trust account to the operating account.
- **Property management agreement (PMA):** the agreement between the property manager and the property owner. It states which property is managed, for what dates, for how much per month, and what is and is not the manager's responsibility.
- **Lease agreement:** the agreement with the resident, typically between the property management company and the resident (in some states, between the owner and the resident). It covers start and end dates, rent amount, late fees, and similar terms.
- **Reconciliation:** matching the transactions on the bank statement to the transactions the software recorded for that account, and investigating anything that appears in one place but not the other.
- **Triple tie-out:** a reconciliation that adds the rent roll as a third check. The bank statement balance, the software bank balance, and the sum of all individual property balances must all match.
- **Core processes:** leasing, rent collection, and maintenance, the three main functions of a property manager.
- **Core workflows:** the processes a company runs multiple times every week, such as move-ins, move-outs, lease renewals, and new owner onboardings. Most companies have about six to 10.
- **RTM (remote team member):** a full-time team member who works outside the United States. I do not call them VAs because they are far more than assistants.
- **EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System):** an operating system for small businesses created by Gino Wickman and described in his book Traction.
- **NARPM:** the National Association of Residential Property Managers, the professional trade group for residential property managers.

## Prerequisites
- Willingness to treat property management as a licensed, regulated business.
- Access to an attorney in your state for licensing questions and documents.
- An accounting professional or service if you do not have an accounting background.

## Step-by-step

### Stage 1: 0 to 50 doors (set up and sell)
1. Find out whether your state requires a license to manage rental property. Most states require you to be a licensed real estate broker or to work under the supervision of one to manage homes you do not own. Confirm with an attorney in your state who knows these laws. Managing without a required license has serious consequences.
2. If a broker's license is hard to get in your state, get a salesperson's license and work under a broker. In Ohio, a broker's license requires a lot of experience, so I worked under a broker for my first two years while I built up the required number of transactions. Negotiate a reasonable split with the broker, who takes a cut of your revenue in exchange for the framework that lets you operate legally.
3. Get an office, such as a co-working space or a small office, ideally close to where you will manage properties. Some states require one. A physical office with your name on the door signals to residents picking up keys and to owners meeting with you that you take the business seriously.
4. Incorporate. An LLC is likely, but this varies by state and you should confirm with a tax professional.
5. Open at least two bank accounts: a trust account for owner and tenant funds, and an operating account for your company's funds. Move management fees and leasing fees from the trust account to the operating account when you collect them.
6. Write a property management agreement and a lease agreement. Your attorney may help, and templates exist online. They do not need to be perfect at the start and will evolve.
7. Choose a business name and domain together, and check domain availability before finalizing the name. Use a .com (not .org, .co, or .biz), one or two words, acronyms of four letters or fewer, and no dashes. If a good domain is for sale for around $300, buy it. My company is RL Property Management Group, and the only domain available was rlpmg.com. Five letters is too many; it is hard to say, awkward, and often mistyped. I regret the name.
8. Sign up for Google's business suite to get email at your domain (for example, your first name at your company domain) plus Google Sheets and Google Docs. Do not run the business from a gmail.com address.
9. Set up a Google Business Profile with your address, business hours, directions, and reviews. Verify it (Google may mail a postcard). Start early, because authority and reviews help you climb organic search results.
10. Network in person. Ask AI for two lists: every realtor meetup in your metro area, and every real estate investor meetup, including meetup.com and local realtor sites. Attend consistently, introduce yourself, ask about the other person, bring business cards, and send a follow-up email after each event.
11. Treat every conversation with a prospective owner or referral partner as sales. Read about sales and track every contact and prospect digitally. A spreadsheet or Google Sheet is fine at first; a CRM comes later.
12. Choose property management software and use it for as much as possible. The five main options are Buildium, AppFolio, Propertyware, Rent Manager, and Rentvine. AppFolio has a 50-door minimum. I use Buildium; it worked well as I scaled and is getting a little creaky past 1,000 doors. Rentvine is known for customer support and an open API.
13. Buy insurance with these coverages (some roll up into one policy): general liability, errors and omissions (E&O), cyber, employee dishonesty, employment practices, and tenant discrimination.
14. Build reps on the three core processes: leasing, rent collection, and maintenance. Think in departments and write down how you handle late fees, evictions, maintenance requests, and turning vacant units. Fancy checklists and process software are not needed yet.
15. Reconcile the trust account every month using a triple tie-out (see Decision rules and Common mistakes). Work with a professional accounting team or service if you lack an accounting background.

### Stage 2: 50 to 100 doors (first hire, first systems)
16. Hire your first employee earlier than you feel ready, around 50, 60, or 70 doors. Most PM companies need one full-time employee for every 50 to 60 doors, depending on property types, staff competence, services offered, and outsourcing. Give the first hire work such as greeting visitors, handling mail, rental showings, answering phones and prospective tenant emails, and processing rent payments.
17. Join NARPM. Membership is affordable and connects you to other PM business owners, conferences, local chapters, and resources. Attend the two national conferences: Broker/Owner in the spring (business owners are eligible) and NARPM National in the fall. Locations change, so check the NARPM website.
18. Add software slowly and deliberately. First use functions already built into your PM platform (Rentvine, Buildium, and AppFolio keep adding capability). Add outside software only when the built-in option does not meet your needs, because each added tool adds expense, data syncing between systems, opportunities for errors, and training.
19. Set up payroll software and keep it compliant with state requirements, including workers' comp and other coverages for full-time W-2 employees. I use Gusto.
20. Put yourself on payroll as a W-2 employee at a reasonable salary.
21. Secure physical keys behind three locks: a locked key cabinet, inside a locked closet, inside a locked office with an alarm system. Label key tags with numbers, not addresses, and keep the legend that maps numbers to addresses hidden and available only to certain employees.
22. Route every incoming request through a digital form instead of a generic email address or contact page. Examples: move-out requests, applications, adding a pet, complaints, and new owner inquiries. Make key fields required and route each form to the person who handles that request. My company has about a hundred forms, mostly in JotForm. Google Forms or another provider also works.
23. Decide how after-hours maintenance calls are handled: yourself, a team member, an AI voice solution for property managers, or an after-hours emergency answering service for property managers that triages calls and can dispatch a vendor. Tell tenants exactly what to do in an emergency. Add a phone menu option after hours, such as "If this is a maintenance emergency, press 8."
24. Set up referral agreements in both directions with other property managers and realtors (see Decision rules).
25. Move external email to a shared inbox, such as info@ or owners@ your company domain. Use one or two at most, for example one for owners and one for tenants. Gmail works for now; shared inbox products such as LeadSimple add more capability.
26. Add one or two property management podcasts to your weekly listening.

### Stage 3: 100 to 250 doors (team, EOS, workflows)
27. Consider your first in-house maintenance technician. You can support about one full-time maintenance technician per 100 doors. At RL Property Management we have eight or nine full-time W-2 maintenance techs, and the maintenance division alone will do easily over a million dollars this year. Relying entirely on third-party vendors is also acceptable.
28. Consider your first remote team member (RTM) for work that does not require being at a property, such as computer and phone work. Talent is available in Mexico, the Philippines, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, at a fraction of US salaries. Agencies place RTMs, in some cases already trained on your software; VPM Solutions is one, and Crane members have access to a partnership that makes this extremely affordable. Most PM companies operating at scale have at least part of their workforce as RTMs.
29. Read Traction by Gino Wickman cover to cover and consider running the company on EOS. Half or more of the most successful PM businesses I know run on EOS, including mine. Reread it as you pass 150 to 200 doors.
30. Identify your six to 10 core workflows (for example move-ins, move-outs, lease renewals, new owner onboardings) and document each one in workflow software. Start a new instance each time the process runs so the software guides the team through every step, shows the status of every open instance, flags overdue items, and assigns specific tasks to specific people.
31. Set up Slack with a few channels, get the whole team on it, and set norms: everyone sets a profile picture, agree on reactions (thumbs up for agreement, check mark for completed), decide whether conversations are threaded, and define what belongs in Slack versus a phone call versus an email. Have it running before onboarding new team members.
32. Subscribe to a few property management industry newsletters to keep up with conferences, software, lawsuits, and best practices.

## Decision rules
- If your state requires a license to manage property you do not own, get licensed or work under a licensed broker before managing any properties.
- If a broker's license is hard to get in your state, start with a salesperson's license and work under a broker for a reasonable split.
- If you are under 50 doors, AppFolio will probably not accept you because of its 50-door minimum.
- If the domain you want is available for around $300, buy it.
- If an acronym domain is longer than four letters, choose something else.
- If you reach roughly 50 to 70 doors, hire your first full-time employee. Plan on one full-time employee per 50 to 60 doors.
- If your PM software already has a function, use it before buying a separate tool. Add outside software only when the built-in function does not meet your needs.
- If your business is an S corp, pay yourself a reasonable salary, or you risk back taxes and fees.
- If a realtor or other property manager refers a client who signs a management agreement, you can pay them a referral fee such as $100, $200, $300, or $500. This is generally legal as long as the other person is licensed in your state.
- If you receive leads for properties you do not want to manage, refer them to another property manager under a signed referral agreement, log each referral in a Google Sheet, check about once a quarter which referrals became customers, and invoice for those.
- If you live in a cold climate, treat frozen and burst pipes as emergencies, since "fire, flood, and blood" is too narrow a definition.
- If you are past 100 doors and want in-house maintenance, hire about one full-time technician per 100 doors.
- If Traction does not resonate at 100 doors, reread it at 150 to 200 doors.
- If you are over 150 doors, consider Crane, my private community for property management business owners.

## Common mistakes
- **Managing without a required license.** State regulators take this seriously. Fix: confirm your state's requirements with an attorney before you start.
- **Choosing a hard-to-say domain.** My company's domain, rlpmg.com, is five letters, awkward, and often mistyped, and a domain is very difficult to change later. Fix: check domain availability before choosing a business name and follow the domain rules above.
- **Running the business from a gmail.com address.** It undermines trust when you are asking owners to trust you with valuable real estate. Fix: use email at your own domain.
- **Skipping monthly trust account reconciliation.** It is the first thing an auditor looks at. Property managers lose tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars when owner balances slide negative unnoticed and the owner leaves owing, for example, $50,000. Fix: run a triple tie-out every month, with professional accounting help if needed.
- **Hiring too late.** Owners delay the first hire out of fear and keep spending time on low-value tasks like showings, applications, and phone calls. Fix: hire around 50 to 70 doors, before you feel ready.
- **Adding too much software too fast.** Each tool adds cost, data syncing, error risk, and training. Fix: use built-in platform features first and add tools deliberately.
- **Not paying yourself a reasonable salary.** It can violate IRS rules for S corps and distorts your financials, making the business look more profitable than it would be if you hired someone to replace you. Fix: put yourself on payroll as a W-2 employee at a reasonable salary.
- **Weak key security.** Stolen keys have led to break-ins at managed homes and major legal liability. Fix: three locks and unlabeled keys with a hidden legend.
- **Accepting requests by generic email or contact page.** Requests arrive incomplete (for example "move out 123 Main Street" with no date or contact information) and go to the wrong person. Fix: required-field digital forms routed to the right person.
- **Delaying the shared inbox.** The longer you wait, the harder the transition, and work stalls when someone leaves or goes on vacation. Fix: set up one or two shared inboxes early.

## Questions and answers
**Do I need a real estate license to start a property management company?**
In most states, yes. Most states require you to be a licensed real estate broker or work under the supervision of one to manage homes you do not own. Check your state's rules and confirm with an attorney. I started with a salesperson's license and worked under a broker for my first two years in Ohio.

**What bank accounts does a new property management company need?**
At least two: a trust account for owner and tenant funds that do not belong to you, and an operating account for your company's money. Management and leasing fees move from the trust account to the operating account. Some states require a separate trust account for security deposits; Ohio does not.

**What makes a good domain name for a property management company?**
A .com, one or two words, acronyms of four letters or fewer, no dashes, and easy to say over the phone. Check availability before you pick your business name. If the domain you want costs around $300, buy it.

**How do I get my first property management clients?**
Go to every realtor and real estate investor meetup in your metro area. Ask AI to build both lists, show up consistently with business cards, ask people about themselves, and follow up by email. Realtors, investors, title attorneys, bankers, brokers, and tax accountants all like having a good property manager to refer clients to.

**Which property management software should I choose when starting out?**
The five main options are Buildium, AppFolio, Propertyware, Rent Manager, and Rentvine. AppFolio has a 50-door minimum. At 20, 50, or 100 doors, the choice will not make or break you. Pick one and use it for as much as you can.

**What insurance does a property management company need?**
General liability, errors and omissions, cyber, employee dishonesty, employment practices, and tenant discrimination coverage. Some of these can be combined under one policy.

**What is a triple tie-out on a trust account?**
It is a monthly reconciliation where three numbers must match: the bank statement balance, the software bank balance, and the sum of every individual property balance on the rent roll. If they do not match, something needs to be investigated and corrected.

**When should a property management company hire its first employee?**
Around 50 to 70 doors, earlier than you feel ready. Most PM companies need one full-time employee for every 50 to 60 doors.

**Why should I pay myself a salary from my property management company?**
If you are an S corp, the IRS may require a reasonable salary. A salary also keeps your financials honest, so you price your services to stay profitable with an owner's salary on the books. When I replaced myself with managers and a president, the money for their salaries was already there.

**How should a property management company secure tenant keys?**
Keep keys behind three locks (a locked key cabinet, a locked closet, and a locked office with an alarm system), and label keys with numbers instead of addresses. Keep the legend that maps numbers to addresses hidden and limited to certain employees.

**How many doors can one in-house maintenance technician support?**
About 100 doors per full-time maintenance technician.

**When should I adopt EOS in my property management company?**
Read Traction once you pass 100 doors. If it does not resonate yet, reread it at 150 to 200 doors, when added headcount and scale create the problems it addresses.

## Video timestamps
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:22 Set up the business the right way
- 09:14 Network your way to the first clients
- 12:51 Pick software and get insured
- 15:07 Build reps on core processes and tie out your trust account
- 19:10 Hire your first team member and join NARPM
- 23:01 Add software slowly and put yourself on payroll
- 26:18 Lock down keys and route everything through forms
- 30:38 After-hours calls, referral deals, and a shared inbox
- 35:55 Past 100 doors: maintenance techs, RTMs, and EOS
- 40:05 Workflow software and team communication