Duplexes to twenty doors
Small multifamily management, at a flat rate per door.
A percentage manager charges you more for every unit you add, while the work per unit goes down. Our management fee is the same for the twentieth door as the first — which is why the saving on a building is so much larger than on a house.
What a percentage actually costs you per building
The gap widens with every door, because a percentage is calculated on the whole rent roll and our fee is calculated on the work. Below is the comparison at 8% — the low end of what Washington managers typically charge, so the real gap is usually wider than this.
| Building | Rent roll / mo | At 8% | Palace, flat | You keep / yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duplexapprox. $2,200/unit | $4,400 | $352 | $238 | $1,368 |
| Fourplexapprox. $1,900/unit | $7,600 | $608 | $476 | $1,584 |
| 8 unitsapprox. $1,800/unit | $14,400 | $1,152 | $952 | $2,400 |
| 12 unitsapprox. $1,750/unit | $21,000 | $1,680 | $1,428 | $3,024 |
| 20 unitsapprox. $1,700/unit | $34,000 | $2,720 | $2,380 | $4,080 |
Per-unit rents above are representative figures for this metro, used to make the arithmetic concrete — they are not a quote and not a rent estimate for your building. Send us the real rent roll and we will run it properly.
This is recurring management fee against recurring management fee. Turnover sits outside it on both sides — ours is $599 to place a tenant and $299 to renew a lease, both flat and both only when they happen. A percentage manager will charge its own leasing fee, usually calculated as a share of the rent. Ask them what theirs is, and add both to the columns above before you decide.
A building is not four houses that happen to touch
The work is genuinely different, and it is different in ways that suit a system rather than a person with a clipboard.
One calendar, not four
A fourplex is four lease expiries, four renewal windows and four increase dates, and they never line up. Missing one is the most common way a small building quietly loses money. Every date sits on one schedule that somebody actually watches, and a renewal drafted off it is $299 — a fraction of one month of the increase it usually secures.
Shared systems have shared failures
One roof, one main, often one boiler or one panel. A failure hits every unit at once, and the vendor call that follows is more urgent than anything a single-family rental generates. We triage against that and dispatch accordingly.
Common areas nobody owns
Stairwells, parking, landscaping, shared laundry, bins. These are the things that go unmanaged until a tenant complains, and they are a large part of why a building feels well run or does not.
Turnover is constant, not occasional
At eight doors something is always turning over. That is routine work at volume rather than a crisis each time, and it is exactly the kind of thing that runs better on a system than on someone remembering.
One statement, not one per door
Income and expenditure consolidated across the building, with per-unit detail underneath when you want it. Your accountant gets one clean picture rather than a folder to reconcile.
One person who knows the building
Not a portfolio manager who reassigns your property when someone leaves. The same named broker, who knows which unit has the temperamental water heater.
Where we are the wrong answer
Above roughly twenty doors a building usually wants on-site staff, and a centralized back-office is the wrong shape for it. We would rather say that now than take the account and underserve it.
The other boundary matters more for buildings than for houses: we do not advertise your vacancies or attend showings. A building with regular turnover needs someone marketing it and opening doors, and that will not be us. Plenty of owners run that themselves or keep an agent for it — and our Screening & Lease Execution package takes over at the application, screening every prospect and drafting every lease. It is worth deciding before you engage us, not after.
How the flat-fee model works →Per door, per month
$119
- 2 units
- $238/mo
- 4 units
- $476/mo
- 8 units
- $952/mo
- 12 units
- $1,428/mo
No base fee on top. No minimum. The monthly fee pauses on any unit that is vacant, and on a larger building the per-door rate can come down — it never goes up. Placing a tenant is $599 and a renewal is $299, each only when it happens.
Everything the fee covers →From owners who worked with us
“Overall, I highly recommend “Palace Property Management Company” for anyone looking to manage their properties effectively. Their expertise, commitment to tenant satisfaction, and strong communication skills have made my experience as a property owner much smoother. I look forward to continuing our partnership and trust them to manage my investment well.
Thanks Harpreet Gill”
“Hamid and team are great at what they do. I was looking for managers that would work towards common good for owners and tenants and I have found Palace property management be the one such company. I highly recommend this company.”
Small multifamily questions
How does pricing work for a multi-unit building?
$119 per unit, per month to manage — the same rate as a single house, and the most you will pay per door in management at any building size. A duplex is $238 a month, a fourplex is $476, and twelve units is $1,428. Deliberately not a base platform fee plus a per-unit charge: that structure looks cheap at two doors and scales badly at twenty, which is the point at which owners usually notice. Two things sit outside the monthly fee, both flat and both only when they happen: $599 to place a tenant in a unit and $299 to draft a renewal. On a larger building the per-door management rate can come down — message us and we will quote it.
What if some units are vacant?
The monthly fee pauses on a vacant unit. We do not list or show units, so an empty one needs almost nothing from us, and charging for it would be charging for work we are not doing. Being straight about the other half of that: refilling the unit is a $599 placement, so a turnover costs you a one-off rather than nothing. On a building with steady turnover both halves are worth modelling — count the paused months and count the placements.
Do you screen tenants for my building?
Yes — applications, background, credit and eviction history, and pet and assistance animal screening, on every applicant in every unit. That is the $599 Screening & Lease Execution package, charged per unit placed rather than folded into the monthly fee. What we do not do is advertise the vacancy or attend the showing; that stays with you, your on-site staff or an agent of your choosing. For a building with regular turnover this is the split worth thinking through before you engage us, because you will be running — and paying for — that part repeatedly.
Is there a size where you stop?
Around twenty doors is where our model stops being the right answer. Above that a building usually needs on-site staff, and a centralized back-office is the wrong shape for it. We would rather tell you that now than take the account and underserve it. Below twenty, the flat fee is generally the largest controllable line in your operating model.
Do you handle the common areas and building systems?
Coordination, yes — landscaping, shared laundry, bins, stairwell lighting, and dispatching a vetted trade to a roof, boiler or panel. The vendor invoices come to you at the actual price with nothing added, which matters more on a building than on a house because there is simply more of it.
I own several small buildings. Does that change anything?
$119 per door is the published management rate across every property you hold, with no base fee and no minimum — and with several buildings it is worth messaging us, because that is exactly where the per-door rate can come down. What it will never do is go up with unit count. Placement and renewal stay at $599 and $299 however many doors you hold. Statements can be consolidated or kept per building, whichever your accounting prefers.
Send us the rent roll
Tell us how many doors and what they rent for. We'll come back with what Palace would charge, what a percentage manager would charge on the same building, and what the difference compounds to over five years.