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Property Management Business Plan Template

Fill in your company, fees and growth targets. The plan writes its own summary, projects three years and shows the unit count where you break even.

  • 10 sections you switch on or off
  • 3-year projection with break-even
  • Word plan and Excel model
Build Your Plan
10 of 10 sections complete
Example plan for a fictional company (Northshore Stays). Change any field and the plan updates.
Company5/5
Plan sections10/10
Preset

Lean keeps the four sections a first reader asks for: summary, fees, market and numbers. Tap a section to add or remove it.

Services and fees5/5
Financial model7/7

Enter new units net of owners you expect to lose.

Salaries incl. yours, office, insurance, software base fees
Per-listing software, supplies, inspection time
Entity, licences, website, equipment. The fee and onboarding fee come from Services and fees.
Market and competition4/4
Marketing, operations and team5/5
Channels, budget and a 90-day calendar belong in the Marketing Plan Template.
Milestones3/3

The break-even milestone is added for you from the numbers.

Business plan · 2027–2029

Northshore Stays

Short-term rental management company

Prepared by Jordan LeeLLCPlan years 2027–2029
Units by Year 353
Year 3 revenue$346,920
Year 3 profit$138,600
Break-even20 units

1Executive summary

Northshore Stays is a short-term rental management company serving Port Ellis and one beach town within 25 minutes. Owners earn steady income from their homes without handling guests, cleaners or repairs.

We start Year 1 with 8 units under management and plan to reach 53 units by the end of Year 3. At a 20% management fee, Year 3 revenue comes to $346,920 with a profit of $138,600. The company breaks even at 20 units, which this plan reaches in month 12 of Year 1 (2027).

2Company and services

Company
Northshore Stays, LLC
Founder
Jordan Lee
Area served
Port Ellis and one beach town within 25 minutes

Services included in the fee

  • Listing setup, photos and pricing
  • Guest messaging and check-in support
  • Cleaning and turnover scheduling
  • Maintenance and inspections
  • Monthly owner statements

3Fee model

Management fee
20% of gross booking revenue
Per unit
$640 a month on an average of $3,200 booking revenue
Onboarding fee
$500 once per new unit
Other fees
Repairs and deep cleans billed to the owner at cost
Owner agreement
12-month term, then 60 days’ notice from either side

4Target market and area

Target owners
Owners of one to three holiday homes who live more than two hours away
Area
Port Ellis and one beach town within 25 minutes
Market count
Example count: 310 active listings in the area, 140 run by hosts with one listing
Units this plan adds
45 over three years, net of owners who leave

5Competition

Owners compare us to
Owners managing alone, two local agencies, cleaners who co-host on the side
Why they choose us
A team within 25 minutes of every home; owner statements by the 5th of each month

6Operations and tech

How the work gets done
Contract cleaners in each town, an inspection after every checkout, two repair vendors on call
Tech stack
PMS with channel manager, smart locks, a dynamic pricing tool, accounting software

7Marketing summary

Referrals from cleaners and estate agents, a free revenue review for owners, and a local search page per town.

Channels, budget and the 90-day calendar are set out in a separate marketing plan.

8Team

Team today
Jordan Lee (owner relations, pricing); one part-time guest coordinator
Next hire
Operations coordinator once the portfolio reaches 25 units

9Milestones

  • Year 1 (2027): Fill the first summer season and collect a review from every owner
  • Year 2 (2028): Open a third town and hire the operations coordinator
  • Year 3 (2029): Keep every owner who joined in Year 1
  • Break-even at 20 units: In month 12 of Year 1 (2027)

10Financial plan

Assumptions

  • Management fee of 20% of gross booking revenue, on $3,200 a month per unit = $640 per unit per month.
  • Onboarding fee of $500 per new unit, counted once in the year the unit joins.
  • Fixed costs of $9,000 a month, flat for three years. Variable cost of $190 per unit per month.
  • New units join evenly through the year, so each counts for half of its first year.
  • Startup costs of $15,000 are spent before Year 1.

Three-year projection

USDYear 12027Year 22028Year 32029
Units at start of year82035
New units added121518
Units at end of year203553
Average units managed1427.544
Management fees$107,520$211,200$337,920
Onboarding fees$6,000$7,500$9,000
Total revenue$113,520$218,700$346,920
Fixed costs$108,000$108,000$108,000
Variable costs$31,920$62,700$100,320
Total costs$139,920$170,700$208,320
Profit−$26,400$48,000$138,600
Cumulative, after startup costs−$41,400$6,600$145,200
RevenueCostsProfit (labelled)
−$100k$0$100k$200k$300k$400kYear 1 revenue: $113,520Year 1 costs: $139,920Year 1 profit: −$26,400−$26kYear 1Year 2 revenue: $218,700Year 2 costs: $170,700Year 2 profit: $48,000$48kYear 2Year 3 revenue: $346,920Year 3 costs: $208,320Year 3 profit: $138,600$139kYear 3
Break-even: 20 units. Each unit contributes $450 a month after variable costs ($640 − $190). Fixed costs of $9,000 ÷ $450 = 20, rounded up to 20. Reached in month 12 of Year 1 (2027).
Northshore Stays · Business plan 2027–2029Made with the Mr. Props plan builder

Your entries show highlighted. Every total is calculated from the financial model inputs, never typed.

Before you start

A Company Plan, Not a Building Plan

Search for this kind of template and you will find two different documents under one name. One plans a property management company: how it earns, grows and pays its people. The other is a management plan for a single building, written to win or keep one owner's account. This page builds the first one.

This template

Company business plan

Written for
You, a co-founder, a lender or an investor
Answers
Will this company make money, and when?
Holds
Services, fee model, market, competition, operations, team, milestones and a three-year projection with break-even
Length
One page for a lean version, twenty or more for a lender
A different document

Management plan for one property

Written for
An owner, a board or an association choosing a manager
Answers
How exactly will you run this building for us?
Holds
Monthly reports, what you may spend without asking, staffing, repair response times, rules for residents or guests
Length
A few pages, usually attached to a proposal

Asked for the second kind? Start from the fee model, operations and team sections you build here, then add the reporting schedule and spending limits that owner's agreement will set.

Readers

Write It for the Person Who Has to Say Yes

A plan that nobody reads changes nothing. Decide who will read yours before you fill in a single field, then switch on the sections that reader will check first.

You and a co-founder

Reads first: milestones and break-even

Use the plan to agree on what you will refuse: towns you won't cover, homes you won't take and the fee you won't go below.

A bank or lender

Reads first: summary and financial plan

A lender wants to see how the money comes back. Show the projection, the month you break even and exactly what a loan pays for.

A partner or investor

Reads first: market, competition, team

An investor is buying into people and a market. Show your own count of reachable owners and the reason those owners will pick you.

Your first large owner

Reads first: fee model and operations

An owner with several homes checks what they pay, what that includes and who picks up the phone when a pipe bursts on a Sunday.

Lean or full? The U.S. Small Business Administration describes two formats. A traditional plan is detailed, can run to dozens of pages and is the kind lenders and investors commonly request. A lean plan covers only the key points and is typically one page. The Lean preset in the builder keeps four sections; Full keeps all ten. SBA: Write your business plan

Fee model

Your Fees Are the Revenue, Not the Bookings

A management company never earns the booking revenue or the rent. It earns a slice of it. Write down exactly which slice, because the same percentage taken from a different base is a different business.

Percentage fee

A share of booking revenue or rent. It grows with your owners' income and shrinks in a quiet month, so your cash moves with the season.

Flat fee per unit

A fixed amount per home each month. Easy to forecast and easy for owners to compare, but it stays the same when a home earns more.

Onboarding fee

Charged once when a home joins, for photos, listing setup, an inventory and lock installation. It is one-off money, so it never belongs in monthly revenue.

Pass-through costs

Cleaning, repairs and supplies you pay and bill back to the owner. Money passes through your account, but none of it is yours. Keep it off the revenue line.

Check your fee base

Take one real month from an owner statement. The example below is fictional.

Gap per home per year$1,728
Fee on gross revenue
$800 / month
Fee after cleaning and platform fees
$656 / month
Gap per month
$144

Across the 44 average units in your Year 3 projection, that is $76,032 a year, if every home had this month.

Put the base you choose in the Fee charged on field and use the same words in your management agreement. No single fee is right everywhere: read the published pricing of the managers in your area, then test your fee in the model. If break-even needs more homes than your market can supply, the fee or the cost base has to change.

Market

Count Your Market One Owner at a Time

Industry-wide figures won't tell a lender how many homes you can sign next year. A count of your own area will. It takes an afternoon. Write down the date you counted, because listing numbers change with the season.

  1. Draw your service area

    Mark the towns your team can reach within the on-site response time you promise. That limit is part of your offer, so it goes in the plan.

  2. Count the active listings

    Use the map view on the booking sites and count the homes inside your area. For long-term rentals, count the rental listings and the buildings you could approach.

  3. Keep the homes you could manage

    Hosts with one or two listings, weak photos or slow replies are your likely owners. Large operators already have a team and rarely switch.

  4. Turn it into units per year

    Decide how many of those owners you can sign each year with the time and money you have. That number goes straight into New units in the model.

Check the local rules before you count a home as a future unit. A permit cap or a primary-residence rule decides how many homes in a town can be rented short-term at all, and that ceiling belongs in your market section. Start with the short-term rental regulations by city, then confirm with the city itself. For rents and nightly rates, our market data pages cover a growing list of cities.

Competition

Who Owners Will Compare You To

Your real competition is rarely another company's brochure. It is the owner's next-best option. Name all three in the plan and say why an owner would move to you.

The owner, aloneAnother managerA cleaner or friend who co-hosts
OffersFull control and no feeA full service, often across a wider area than yoursA low price and a personal relationship
Why they stayThey don't trust anyone else with the houseSwitching feels like a lot of workLoyalty, and it mostly works
What moves themThe hours you take off their week and a statement they can check line by lineFaster replies, clearer statements or a fairer fee baseCover for sick days, peak weeks and the repair nobody planned for
In your planThe time an owner gets back, in one lineTheir fee base next to yoursWhat happens on the day they can't make it

Describe the type of competitor and the gap you fill. Owners and lenders don't need a list of rival company names.

Operations

Plan the Systems for Your Twentieth Unit

With five homes, the founder's phone is the system. By twenty, any job that lives in one person's head turns into a missed check-in or a late owner statement. Say how each job runs today and what tells you it needs a person or a tool.

JobHow it often startsTrigger to write in your plan (example)
Guest or tenant messagesThe founder answers from a phoneReplies slip past the response time you promise
TurnoversOne cleaner per town, booked by textTwo checkouts in one town land in the same hour
RepairsThe founder calls a handymanRequests wait more than a day for someone to read them
Owner statementsA spreadsheet at month endStatements go out later than the agreement says
Keys and accessLockbox codes kept in a notes appThe first time a code is shared with the wrong person
PricingThe founder edits rates every weekSome homes go a week without anyone checking their rates
Property management systemChannel managerSmart locksPricing toolAccounting softwareInspection checklistMaintenance request form

Name each tool in the tech stack field, and the person who owns it. A PMS such as Mr Props keeps calendars, guest messages and owner statements in one place, so your first hire takes over a system rather than your inbox.

Financial plan

How the Projection and Break-Even Work

The model in the builder is small on purpose. Every line comes from the inputs in the Financial model group, so you can check each one by hand. These cards use the numbers in the builder right now.

Fee per unit

$3,200 × 20%

$640 / month

What one home pays you in a typical month.

Contribution per unit

$640 − $190 variable cost

$450 / month

What is left from that home after its own running costs.

Break-even units

$9,000 ÷ $450 = 20

20 units

How many homes it takes for the fees to cover your fixed costs.

Break-even leaves out onboarding fees on purpose. They arrive once per home, so counting them would make a growing company look profitable only because it is still growing.

A year's revenue is the average number of units, times the fee per unit, times 12, plus the onboarding fees for that year's new units. Costs are twelve months of fixed costs plus the variable cost of the average number of units. New units join evenly through the year, so each one counts for half of its first year.

What moves your break-even

Each row changes one input and keeps the rest as you entered them.

If this changesBreak-even unitsYear 3 profit
Your plan as entered20 units$138,600
Fee 2 points lower24 units$104,808
Revenue per unit 10% lower24 units$104,808
Fixed costs 25% higher25 units$111,600
Variable cost per unit 25% higher23 units$113,520
Half the new units each year20 units$36,900

A lender may ask for more. For a financing request, the SBA's guide asks for a five-year outlook with forecast income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements, and suggests quarterly or monthly detail for the first year. This model covers three years by year; extend the spreadsheet before you send it to a bank. SBA: financial projections

Milestones

Milestones You Can Count

"Grow the business" isn't a milestone. A unit count, a date and a test you can pass or fail are. Tie each milestone to a number in the model, so the plan tells you early when you're off track.

  1. First owners

    The offer sells

    Your first owners signed at the fee in your plan, not at a discount you can't keep. Ask what nearly stopped them, and fix your fee page with the answer.

  2. 20 units

    Fees cover fixed costs

    From this unit count on, every new home adds profit. The builder puts the month you reach it into the plan for you.

  3. First hire

    One job no longer fits

    Use the trigger from your operations section. Add the salary to fixed costs before the person starts, and look at the new break-even first.

  4. Second area

    The first area runs without you

    Expand only once response times and reviews in your first area hold steady for a full season.

  5. Owners kept

    Year 1 owners are still here

    Count how many of your first-year owners stayed. A plan that only adds homes hides the ones walking out of the back door.

Every quarter, put the plan next to the real numbers

Mistakes

Six Errors That Bend a Projection

Each of these makes the numbers look better than the company will be. All six are easy to spot once you know where to look.

DoNumbers that hold up

Revenue

Put only your own fees on the revenue line.

Fee base

Use the exact base your management agreement uses.

Salary

Include your own pay in fixed costs from month one.

Units

Enter new units after taking off the owners you expect to lose.

Setup

Count each onboarding fee once, in the year the home joins.

Costs

Raise fixed costs in the year you plan to hire, then rerun the model.

AvoidNumbers that flatter

Revenue

Owners' booking revenue shown as company revenue

Fee base

Fee on gross in the plan, on net in the contract

Salary

A founder who works three years for nothing

Units

Signed owners only, as if nobody ever leaves

Setup

Setup fees spread across the year as monthly income

Costs

The same cost base at eight homes and at fifty

Examples

Three Example Plans to Start From

Three fictional companies at different sizes. Every figure on these cards is calculated from the inputs shown. Load one into the builder and change it until it matches your own company.

Example · Short-term rentals

Solo co-host

Lake Arden Hosting: One person, three homes, one lake

Break-even
10 units
Reached
Year 2
Year 3 profit
$28k
  • Units, start to Year 33 → 7 → 11 → 16
  • Booking revenue per unit, monthly$2,800
  • Management fee22%
  • Fixed costs per month$4,500
  • Variable cost per unit$120

What this plan has to prove: That one person can cover every guest message and turnover until a second person is affordable.

Example · Short-term rentals

Growing short-term company

Northshore Stays: Founder plus a part-time coordinator, two towns

Break-even
20 units
Reached
Year 1
Year 3 profit
$139k
  • Units, start to Year 38 → 20 → 35 → 53
  • Booking revenue per unit, monthly$3,200
  • Management fee20%
  • Fixed costs per month$9,000
  • Variable cost per unit$190

What this plan has to prove: That cash lasts through Year 1, before the new homes bring fees up to cover the team.

Example · Long-term rentals

Long-term rental manager

Elm Row Property Co.: Leasing and rent collection, 60 doors to start

Break-even
106 units
Reached
Year 2
Year 3 profit
$65k
  • Units, start to Year 360 → 90 → 120 → 160
  • Rent per unit, monthly$1,650
  • Management fee9%
  • Fixed costs per month$12,500
  • Variable cost per unit$30

What this plan has to prove: That a small fee per door works at volume, and that leasing fees are not hiding a thin margin.

Names, places and figures are invented to show how the model behaves. They are not market benchmarks.

FAQ

Questions From New Property Managers

How do I create a property management company?

Work through it in this order, and write the plan before you sign your tenth owner, not after:

  • Pick the area and the model: short-term, long-term or both.
  • Check whether you need a licence to manage other people's homes. In the US, ask your state's real estate commission; elsewhere, ask the local authority.
  • Check the permits each home needs in each town you cover.
  • Form the company and get insurance that covers managing property you don't own.
  • Have a lawyer draft your owner management agreement.
  • Set up your tools, then sign your first owners.
How much is a property management business worth?

We don't publish valuation figures, and any rule of thumb you read should be tested against real sales. A buyer looks at the recurring management fees, how long owners stay, how easily they can leave under your agreement, how much revenue depends on a few owners, and profit after a fair salary for whoever runs it. A business broker or valuer who works with management companies can put a number on yours.

How long should the plan be?

As long as its reader needs. For your own planning or a first owner, the Lean preset gives you a page or two. For a bank, switch every section on, add detail under each heading and attach the Excel model.

What management fee should I put in the plan?

Your own fee, tested. Collect the published pricing of managers in your area and note the base each one charges on. Then enter your fee in the model and read the break-even. If it needs more homes than your market count can supply, change the fee, the services you include or your cost base.

Is a short-term rental plan different from a long-term one?

Yes, in three places. Revenue per unit is booking revenue that swings by season, against rent that mostly doesn't. The work per home is turnovers and guest messages, against tenant requests and renewals. And cash flow: a quiet season can leave a short-term manager short for months. The tabs in the builder switch the wording, services and example to match.

When should I rewrite the plan?

Check it against real numbers every quarter with the list in the milestones section. Rewrite it when something structural changes: a new area, a new hire, a new service or a new fee.

Can I use this plan for a loan application?

As a first draft, yes. Ask the lender what they need before you finish it. The SBA notes that lenders and investors commonly request the detailed traditional format, and its guide asks for a five-year financial outlook when you seek funding.

Is this business plan template for property management free?

Yes. Fill it in on this page, then download the plan as a Word file and the projection as an Excel model. The example figures are fictional, so replace every one of them with your own.

Keep going

Templates for Running the Company Day to Day

Operations · XLSX + DOCX

Property Inspection Template

The room-by-room standard your operations section promises owners.

View template Operations · DOCX

Maintenance Request Template

Turn every repair into a work order with a deadline and an owner.

View template Operations · DOCX

Pet Policy Template

One of the first house rules a new owner will ask you to set.

View template Guest experience · DOCX

Guest Welcome Letter Template

The first page guests read from your company, in every home you manage.

View template
Helvis Schmotex

Helvis Schmotex

Founder, Mr. Props · Short-term rental investor

Helvis has spent the better part of a decade buying and selling real estate, and now focuses on scaling his short-term rental portfolio. He joined forces with the property OG himself, Mr Props, to share what's actually working — the systems, numbers, and hard lessons — so other hosts can grow faster and with fewer headaches.

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