A landlord with three rental properties in suburban Ohio wakes up to a text from a tenant: the water heater broke overnight. She opens a spreadsheet to log the maintenance request, switches to Venmo to check if last month's rent came in, then drafts an email to her usual plumber. This juggling act — spreadsheets for tracking, Venmo for payments, text messages for maintenance — is how most small landlords with 1-10 units operate.
48% of rental properties in America are owned by individual landlords, not companies. That's 11+ million landlords managing 22+ million units. But property management software is built for professionals managing 50+ units. Buildium starts at $62/mo. AppFolio requires 50+ units minimum. Even 'small landlord' tools like Avail (now owned by Apartments.com) have clunky interfaces and limited automation.
The gap is a simple, modern property management tool at $19-29/mo for the landlord with 1-10 units: rent collection with automatic late fee calculation, maintenance request tracking, lease document storage, and expense tracking for tax time. Not a feature-bloated enterprise tool — just the essentials done well. TenantCloud and Landlord Studio are close but lack polish. With 11 million potential customers, even 0.1% market penetration at $25/mo is $27.5M ARR.
💰 Revenue Blueprint
Three-tier value ladder to monetize from day one
1 property, rent tracking, basic expense logging
Up to 5 properties, rent collection with late fees, maintenance requests, lease storage
Unlimited properties, tenant screening, expense reports for taxes, automated reminders
📊 Market Evidence
The Market Gap
Buildium/AppFolio are enterprise ($62+/mo, 50+ unit minimums). Avail is free but clunky, owned by Apartments.com. Gap for modern, simple tool at $19-29/mo for 1-10 unit landlords with: rent collection, maintenance tracking, lease storage, expense tracking.
🏆 Competitor Landscape
How existing players stack up in this market
| Competitor | Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Buildium | $62-192/mo | Full-featured, 50+ units ideal |
| Avail | Free / $7/unit/mo | DIY landlords, simple features |
| TenantCloud | Free / $15-50/mo | Free tier for small portfolios |
| Rentec Direct | $45-65/mo | Accounting-focused, good for taxes |
| Landlord Studio | Free / $12+/mo | Mobile-first, expense tracking |
Full-featured, 50+ units ideal
DIY landlords, simple features
Free tier for small portfolios
Accounting-focused, good for taxes
Mobile-first, expense tracking
🛠️ Recommended Tech Stack
Suggested tools and technologies to build this idea
Why this stack: Plaid for ACH rent collection. Supabase for tenant/property data. Simple stack for a focused product.
Score Breakdown
Good market signals with room for growth
Market (20%) + Revenue (20%) + Trend (15%) + Competition (15%) + Build (15%) + Pricing (15%)
🚀 Start Building
Copy a prompt into your favorite AI coding tool and start building this idea right now.
Build a SaaS product called "Small Landlord Property Manager". ## Product Overview Rent reminders and lease storage for 1-10 units ## Problem Rent reminders and lease storage for 1-10 units ## Solution Build Small Landlord Property Manager ## Target Audience indie hackers, small businesses, and solopreneurs ## Tech Stack - Next.js 15 (App Router) with TypeScript - Tailwind CSS v4 for styling - Supabase for auth, database, and storage - Vercel for deployment - shadcn/ui for UI components - Framer Motion for animations ## MVP Features to Build 1. Landing page with clear value proposition 2. User authentication (sign up, sign in, forgot password) 3. Core product functionality based on the solution above 4. Dashboard for users to manage their data 5. Pricing page with at least 2 tiers (free + paid) 6. Basic settings/profile page ## Known Competitors Buildium, Avail, TenantCloud, Rentec Direct, Landlord Studio ## Key Risks to Address Standard market entry risks ## Deployment 1. Set up Supabase project and configure environment variables 2. Deploy to Vercel with `npx vercel --prod` 3. Set up custom domain 4. Configure Supabase RLS policies for security ## Instructions Start by creating the project structure, then build the landing page first. Use server components where possible. Make it mobile-responsive from the start. Focus on getting the core value loop working before adding polish.