OwnAway vs. a property management company

What a management company does

A full-service manager markets vacancies, screens applicants, signs leases, collects rent, handles maintenance, and deals with tenants. In exchange they take a percentage of monthly rent (commonly 8–12%), a leasing fee when a unit turns, and often a markup on repairs. You get hands-off ownership and, usually, less visibility: you find out about a repair when it shows up on the monthly statement.

What OwnAway does

• Tenants text one number, at any hour. OwnAway responds within a minute, asks the right questions, and collects photos.
• Every request is triaged: emergencies page you immediately; routine requests are scheduled.
• OwnAway coordinates your vendors over text — dispatch, scheduling, confirmation — and keeps the tenant updated.
• You see every request and every message on your dashboard, get summaries, and can step in with one text.
• Every outbound message is checked against the record before it sends, and a person reviews anything the system is not sure about.

OwnAway does not collect rent, screen applicants, or show units. If you need those handled for you, you need a manager or separate tools. If maintenance and tenant texts are the part of landlording that eats your evenings, OwnAway is the part that fixes that.

Side by side

• Cost: manager takes a share of rent plus fees; OwnAway is a flat, agreed pilot price that does not scale with your rent.
• Control: manager decides and reports; you decide, OwnAway executes.
• Vendors: manager uses theirs, often with a markup; OwnAway uses yours, at their price.
• Visibility: monthly statement; live dashboard and summaries.
• Tenant experience: office hours and a portal; a text message, answered at 11pm.
• Leasing, screening, rent collection: manager does it; OwnAway does not.

Who should pick which

Pick a management company if you want no involvement at all, including leasing, and the fee is worth that to you. Pick OwnAway if you are willing to stay the owner-of-record on decisions, already have (or can find) vendors you trust, and what you actually want back is the interruptions. Landlords with a few units to a few dozen are where that trade is clearest.

Questions