Why Most Landlords Don't Need Property Management Software

The property management software industry really wants you to think you need their product. They'll show you dashboards and automations and tenant portals and make you feel like you're doing it wrong with your spreadsheet.

Here's the truth: if you have under 20 units and you're self-managing, you probably don't need PM software.

The Data Doesn't Justify It

I surveyed 40 landlords with 5-20 units last year. Only 6 used dedicated PM software. The other 34 used spreadsheets, notebooks, or just their memory.

Of those 6, 3 said they wished they'd stuck with their spreadsheet. The software was more work than what they replaced.

That's a 50% satisfaction rate. Not great for products costing $50-175/month. I did a full spreadsheet vs PM software comparison if you want the details.

What PM Software Actually Gives You

Accounting. Built-in income and expense tracking with reports. Useful if you don't already have a bookkeeping system. But a spreadsheet or QuickBooks does this just as well for most landlords.

Tenant portal. A place for tenants to pay rent online and submit maintenance requests. Nice to have. But most small landlords collect rent via Venmo, Zelle, or check. And tenants text maintenance requests. Changing that workflow has a cost.

Automated reminders. The software sends rent reminders and late notices automatically. This saves time if you have 50 units. At 10 units, you can send 10 texts in 5 minutes.

Lease management. Tracks lease terms, expirations, and renewals. Helpful at scale. At 10 units, a simple list works fine.

What PM Software Costs You

Money. $55-175/month for most platforms. That's $660-2,100/year. On a 10-unit portfolio with average rent of $1,200, that's 4.5-14.5% of one unit's annual rent going to software.

Time. Setup takes a weekend. Learning the system takes a month. Maintaining it takes time every day. You're replacing 5 minutes of spreadsheet work with 15 minutes of clicking through a dashboard.

Flexibility. You now work the way the software wants you to work. Your custom spreadsheet that tracked exactly what you needed? Gone. Replaced by someone else's idea of what you need.

Vendor lock-in. Your data is in their system. Want to switch? Good luck exporting 3 years of data in a usable format.

What You Actually Need

Based on my own experience and talking to dozens of landlords, here's what small landlords actually need:

1. A place to track rent payments. (Spreadsheet works.)

2. A place to track maintenance requests. (Spreadsheet works.)

3. Alerts when something needs attention. (Spreadsheet does NOT do this. Though you can set up Apps Script alerts if you're technical.)

That third one is the gap. Your spreadsheet has the data. But it can't poke you when something's wrong. It just sits there, waiting for you to look.

PM software solves this by replacing your entire system with their platform. That's like buying a new car because your old one doesn't have a phone charger. Just add a phone charger.

The Better Approach

Keep your spreadsheet. It works. You know it. You trust it. Just add the one thing it's missing: monitoring and alerts.

That's literally why I built RentGuard. I didn't want to switch to Buildium for 12 units. I just wanted someone to watch my spreadsheet and tell me when something was off.

RentGuard connects to your Google Sheet. Reads it daily. Sends you an email when rent is overdue or maintenance is aging. $15/month. No migration. No learning curve.

For most landlords with under 20 units, this is all you need. Save the PM software money for your next down payment. If you want to see the full setup, read the spreadsheet landlord toolkit.

Check it out at descoshop.com. Free forever, no credit card.