Industry
Real estate
How a brokerage or a small property manager can run listings and inquiries on its own site, with tenant and owner portals behind a login.
Updated September 24, 2026
In short
A real estate website should show your own listings and send every inquiry to the person who handles it. A property manager's site also needs two logins: a tenant portal for repair requests and an owner portal for rent notes and repairs. Behind both sits one system of properties and open jobs, so nothing depends on a personal inbox.
A real estate website: A real estate website is the office's own address online, apart from the big listing sites. For a brokerage it carries the listings the office holds and a page for each agent, and every inquiry reaches the agent it belongs to. For a property manager it adds two private areas: a tenant portal where repair requests arrive with photos, and an owner portal where owners read the rent notes and the repair history for their property. The site and the office work from the same records, so each request is typed once.
What a brokerage or property manager needs from its site
Most renters and buyers start their search on the big listing sites, so your own site does a different job. An owner looking for a manager, or a seller choosing an agent, will often read it before calling. The people you already work for use it too, when a tenant has a leak or an owner wants to know how the month went. A small landlord with a handful of units has the same needs at a smaller scale.
- Listings you update yourself, each with its own inquiry form
- A tenant portal that takes repair requests with photos attached
- One board of open repairs, each assigned to a vendor with a date
- An owner portal with rent notes and the repair history of each property
What the back office needs
Behind the site, most of the work is routing. An inquiry has to reach the agent or manager who can answer it, and a repair request has to reach a vendor, with the tenant told when someone is coming. With the properties and the people in one system, the owner's monthly report comes out of what is already recorded, instead of an evening spent piecing it together from texts.
What your office owes tenants and owners under the law is for you and your advisers to settle; the software keeps the records you decide to keep.
- Inquiries filed under the listing they came from and sent to the agent or manager who handles it
- Repair requests assigned to a vendor, with the tenant told when the visit is booked
- One record per property that links its owner and its tenants
- Rent notes kept per unit, ready for the owner portal to show
- A monthly owner report put together from the notes and repairs already on file
Tools most brokerages and property managers already use
A property manager usually runs on a management system, and a brokerage on a contact manager plus an e-signature service. Where those tools accept data from outside, the site sends inquiries straight into them and your office carries on as before. The names below are ones you may already know, listed for orientation rather than as a recommendation.
- AppFolio
- Buildium
- Zillow
- Follow Up Boss
- DocuSign
- QuickBooks
Common choices, not endorsements.
The listing sites, or your own site and portals
The listing sites are where people search, and most offices keep posting there. What differs is what happens after the first message: on your own site an inquiry or a repair request lands in records you keep, laid out the way your office works, rather than in a vendor's screens.
| Listing sites and a vendor page | Your own site and portals | |
|---|---|---|
| Fees | Paid options on the listing sites, plus a subscription for the vendor software | The build up front, then hosting |
| Who keeps the contact | The first message arrives through the listing site | Every inquiry is filed in your own records |
| Repair requests | The vendor's standard form | Your own questions, with photos and a time to get in |
| Owner updates | The reports the vendor offers | An owner view built around what you choose to share |
| Changes | Limited to the settings the vendor allows | Your call, and the code belongs to you |
Swipe sideways to see every column
A worked example (hypothetical)
Picture a small property manager looking after rentals for a handful of local owners. Tenants text repair requests to the manager's own phone, and each owner gets a long email at the end of the month pieced together from those texts.
For $11,900, the Growth tier covers vacancy pages the manager edits and an inquiry form that drops each showing request into the office's own contact system.
The tenant and owner portals, with the repair board behind them, would be a custom app. A version with the repair board alone starts from $15,300, and adding both portals takes it toward $34,000. The site can open first; tenants and owners join the portals once the board is in daily use.
The concept app
Keyring, below, is a concept we drew for this page to show the office side of a small property manager, from an open unit to an owner's monthly view. Read it as a sketch: nobody sells it, and no office runs on it.
Keyring
Open listings the office edits itself, each with photos and its own inquiry form.
A tenant's repair request, with photos of the problem and a good time to get into the unit.
The open repairs on one board, each with its vendor and the day of the visit.
What an owner sees after logging in: the rent notes and the repairs for each property.
Common questions
Can tenants send repair requests through the site?
Yes, through a tenant portal behind a login. The form asks for photos and a time when someone can get into the unit, and each request lands on the repair board, where the tenant can follow its status.
What does an owner see in the owner portal?
Each owner sees only their own properties, with the rent notes you post and the repairs on file. You decide what else goes there, such as the monthly report or a copy of a repair invoice.
Do I have to stop using my property management software?
No. A management system that opens its data can keep running the books while the portals sit in front of it, and the plan lists which parts connect. A system that keeps its data closed is named as such in the plan, before anything is built.
Should a small office rely on the listing sites or build its own?
Keep the listing sites for reach, since that is where people search. Your own site is where they check who you are, and it is the one place a tenant or an owner logs in to your records.
Can inquiries go straight to the right agent?
Yes, by listing or by area, whichever way your office splits the work. Every inquiry also stays in one shared list, so the broker can see what came in and who picked it up.
Can we launch the site before the portals?
Yes. The site can go live with your listings and an inquiry form, and the portals can follow when the office is ready to move tenants and owners onto them.
Start with a written plan
Tell us about the business and what you need. We reply with questions, then a written plan that lists the work and its price, and nothing starts until you have read it.