Property Management App Development

Who uses a property management app and what each needs

A property management app serves at least four groups, and each one opens it for a different reason. Residents want to pay, report a problem and book the clubroom without calling the office. Maintenance technicians want their work orders, unit access details and parts list for the day. Property managers want to see open requests, upcoming lease expirations and unit turns. Owners and investors want performance reports without waiting for a monthly email.

The operating model changes the design. A 300 unit multifamily community has an onsite team, a package room and amenities to book. A single family rental operator has thousands of scattered homes, vendors instead of staff technicians, and self guided showings. A community association needs architectural requests, violation notices and board votes. Tepia maps your model in Discovery before deciding which apps you need, which is often one resident app and one staff app sharing a backend rather than a single app that tries to serve everyone.

The goal is fewer phone calls and faster fixes. When residents can see a request move from submitted to scheduled to completed, renewal conversations get easier.

Property management app features

Tepia scopes features from your portfolio type and the complaints your team hears most. A typical first release covers the following:

Payments run through Stripe with tokenized card and bank data, which keeps PCI DSS scope small and card numbers off your servers.

Community features come next for most operators: notices targeted by building or floor, water shutoff and elevator outage alerts, event sign ups and a resident directory people opt into. Tepia adds these after the first release once the team sees which requests residents actually make, rather than guessing up front.

Maintenance, turns and inspections in the field

Maintenance is where a property management app proves itself. Tepia designs the technician side as carefully as the resident side, because a tech who cannot find the unit’s entry notes or the last repair history will call the office anyway.

• Triage at intake: the request form asks the right follow up questions, such as whether water is actively leaking, and flags emergencies for the on call tech.
• Context at the door: pet alerts, entry permission, appliance model and serial, and past work orders on that unit.
• Parts and vendors: techs log parts used, and jobs beyond in house skills go to approved vendors with their own limited app access.
• Turn tracking: each vacant unit has a checklist and target date, and leasing sees slippage the day it happens.
• Preventive work: HVAC filter changes, smoke detector checks and water heater flushes scheduled across the portfolio.

Leaks deserve special attention. The EPA estimates household leaks waste a vast amount of water every year, and a slow leak under a sink becomes a ceiling repair downstairs. Tepia’s work on the Water Saver Solutions fixture care app informs how we design leak reporting and follow up. For deeper facility workflows, see our property maintenance and facilities work order app page.

Integrations with your property management system and access hardware

Most operators already run Yardi, AppFolio, Entrata, RealPage or Buildium as the accounting and leasing system of record. Tepia builds apps that work alongside it rather than duplicating it, using the platform’s API or partner program where one is available and scheduled data exchange where it is not.

• Property management system: residents, units, leases, balances and work orders sync so staff do not enter anything twice.
• Payments: Stripe for ACH and cards, with payments posted back to the resident ledger.
• Access control: smart locks and gate controllers for resident entry, vendor access windows and self guided tours. Tepia built the iOS, Android and admin portal for Maximum Controls, a gate control and IoT access product, so we know how hardware, cloud and phone have to agree.
• Messaging: Twilio texts and push notifications for request updates, outages and community notices.
• Screening and applications: handoff to your screening provider with consent captured in the app.

See our gate and access control app and IoT app development pages for the hardware side.

How Tepia approaches property management app development

Tepia runs its six phase process with a US based project manager who coordinates your operations, maintenance and IT leads.

1. Discovery: property visits, ride alongs with technicians, resident interviews and an API review of your property management system. Deliverables are an Investigation Summary, an Interview Summary and User Stories such as a resident reporting a leak at night and seeing a tech scheduled by morning.
2. Design: a design questionnaire, moodboards in your brand, a style guide and wireframes for the resident and staff apps, checked against WCAG 2.1 AA.
3. Development and Testing: an Alpha at one property and a Beta across a region, with test plans for sync with the property system, payment posting and access permissions.
4. Training: hands on sessions for onsite teams and short guides residents can follow alone.
5. Launch: data migration, resident invitations property by property, and support reps during the first weeks.
6. Support: bug tracking and features such as owner reporting or new amenity types.

Tepia generally plans 1 to 3 months of Discovery, 2 to 6 months of development and QA, and about a month for launch. See our work or talk to Tepia about your portfolio.

Frequently asked questions