Honest comparison
Looking for a Doorstead alternative in Washington?
Doorstead sells certainty: a guaranteed rent figure, whether or not the unit is occupied. That is a real product and it suits some owners. It is also priced as a percentage of your rent, which is the thing we exist to argue against.
What Doorstead is
Doorstead is a full-service property management company operating in several metros, best known for offering owners a guaranteed rent amount — they commit to paying you a set figure regardless of vacancy, and take on the risk of filling the unit. Leasing is central to the model, and management is priced as a percentage of rent rather than a flat fee.
We describe how Doorstead is structured, not what it charges — their pricing is theirs to change, and a figure quoted here would be out of date before long. For current pricing, go to Doorstead’s own site ↗.
Doorstead and Palace, side by side
| Doorstead | Palace Property Management | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee structure | A percentage of rent. The fee rises every time your rent does. | Flat $109 per unit, per month, plus flat one-offs for placement and renewal. Not one of those figures moves when your rent moves. |
| Vacancy risk | They take it on — that is the product, and it is a genuine benefit. | Stays with you. We do not control how a unit is marketed, so we cannot and do not guarantee rent. |
| Listings and showings | Central to the model. They have to fill the unit to make the guarantee work. | Yours to run. We take over at the application and handle screening, the lease and the tenancy — a flat $499, not a share of the rent. |
| Who holds your rent | Rent is collected into the manager’s account and paid out to you on their schedule. | Nobody. Your tenant pays you directly — rent never enters our company account, so it is never pooled, delayed or exposed. |
| Repair approval | Typically a spending threshold, below which repairs proceed without asking you. | Your approval on every repair, at any amount. No threshold, and no invoice you did not agree to. |
| Coverage | Operates across multiple states. | Washington only. One state’s rules, one market, one set of vendors we actually know. |
| Who you talk to | A support channel, with the person answering varying by ticket. | One of two named people who own the company. Hamid holds the broker license; Amir handles onboarding. |
| What the fee buys as rent rises | The same service, at an increasing cost. | The same service, at the same cost. A $5,000 house and a $1,500 house are billed identically, at every one of our three figures. |
Choose Doorstead if
These are real, and we would rather you hear them from us than find out later.
- A guaranteed rent check is worth more to you than a lower fee. If vacancy would genuinely hurt — a tight mortgage, no reserve — that certainty is worth paying a percentage for, and we do not offer anything like it.
- Your unit is vacant and you want one company to advertise it, show it, fill it and then run it.
- You want somebody else carrying the risk of a slow leasing market.
Choose Palace if
Flat $109 per unit, per month, across Washington.
- Your unit is already tenanted, in which case you would be paying for a vacancy guarantee you are not using.
- You have a stable long-term tenant and the guarantee is insuring against something that is not going to happen.
- Your rent is high, which is where a percentage costs the most and delivers no more than it does on a cheap unit.
- You would rather keep the rent yourself and pay a small fixed fee than have it routed through anyone.
Switching from Doorstead
Do you offer guaranteed rent like Doorstead?
No, and we would be misleading you if we implied otherwise. A rent guarantee only works if the company controls how the unit gets filled — it has to be able to market it, show it and price it to cover its own promise. Marketing and showings stay with you, so we are structurally unable to offer a guarantee no matter how good our screening is. If a guarantee is what you want, that is a genuine reason to choose them over us.
How much does a percentage actually cost against a flat fee?
It depends entirely on your rent, which is the point — a percentage rises with it and our figures do not. On a single high-rent house the annual gap on management alone is usually four figures; on a small building it compounds considerably faster, because a percentage is charged on the whole rent roll while the work per unit falls. Turnover is worth counting on both sides: ours costs $499 to place and $299 to renew, flat, where a percentage manager typically charges a leasing fee calculated from the rent. Send us the address, the current rent and how often the unit turns over, and we will put the whole thing side by side including what it comes to over five years.
My tenant is stable. Am I paying for a guarantee I do not need?
That is the question worth asking, and it is not one we can answer for you. A vacancy guarantee is insurance, and insurance against something that is not going to happen is simply a cost. If your tenant has been in place for years and pays on time, look carefully at what the percentage is buying you beyond the same rent collection and notice service our monthly fee covers — and note that a long, stable tenancy is exactly the case where our placement and renewal fees never come up.
Comparing us with someone else?
See the number for your property
Send us the address and the current rent. We'll tell you what Palace would charge, what you're paying now, and an honest view on whether switching is actually worth the effort.