How many units can one person self-manage?

There is no fixed number. It depends on the building, the tenants and how organized the routine is. Track your hours for a month and decide from your own log.

What should I do every month as a landlord?

Close the books, update the rent roll, look 90 days ahead at lease end dates, write a short report on income, expenses and who is behind, and do recurring maintenance.

How often should I inspect my apartments?

Many owners walk the common areas weekly and each unit once a quarter, with the notice their lease and state law require before entering.

How to Self-Manage an Apartment Building

Self-managing an apartment building works when the work runs on a fixed rhythm: rent and repairs every week, books and lease dates every month, taxes and big checks once a year. Most owners who burn out are not doing too much, they are doing it at random. Below is a routine you can copy, with a sample time budget for a 20 unit building.

Why a fixed routine beats reacting

When you manage your own units, the work arrives in bursts: three repair texts on a Monday, a move-out on the 30th, a late payment on the 6th. If you handle each one as it lands, you spend the week switching tasks and the month-end books never get done. A routine turns that stream into batches. Repair requests wait for your maintenance block unless they are urgent. Bookkeeping happens on one set day. Lease dates get looked at before they become surprises.

The routine also protects your tax return. The IRS tells rental owners in Publication 527 to keep accurate records and to separate the costs of repairs from improvements. That is far easier to do one week at a time than in a single weekend in March.

Every week

Pick one or two fixed slots, for example Monday morning and Thursday evening, and work through this list in order.

Check what rent came in. Match each deposit in the bank to a tenant and a month. Anyone more than a few days late gets a polite reminder, following the late fee terms in their lease.
Sort repair requests. Decide what is urgent (no heat, water leak, lock out), what can be batched, and who will do it. Schedule vendors for the batch in one call.
Walk or drive the property. Look at common areas, trash, lights, parking and anything a tenant would never report, like a gutter hanging loose.
Record every expense from the week with its receipt, in the right account: repairs, supplies, utilities and so on.
Move vacancies forward. Answer inquiries, book showings in one block, and follow up on applications.

Every month

Set a monthly close date a few days after rent is due, when most payments have cleared. On that day:

Close the books: every bank line categorized, the bank balance agreeing with your ledger, deposits held listed by tenant.
Update the rent roll: who lives where, what they pay, what they owe, and when each lease ends. The rent roll guide covers the columns.
Look 90 days ahead at lease end dates. Decide on renewals and rent changes early, and give whatever written notice your lease and your state require.
Write yourself a one-page report: income, expenses, net operating income, occupancy and who is behind. See what goes in a monthly owner report.
Restock supplies and change filters or other recurring maintenance items on schedule.

Every quarter and every year

Some tasks are too big for a weekly slot but too important to forget. Put them on a calendar now.

When	Task
Each quarter	Walk every unit with notice to tenants (smoke detectors, leaks under sinks, windows, signs of pests)
Each quarter	Compare actual expenses to your budget and adjust reserves
Before winter and summer	Service heating and cooling, clean gutters, check the roof
Insurance renewal	Confirm coverage and liability limits still fit the building
January	Send 1099s to vendors who need them and hand each property's books to your tax preparer
Every year	Re-check rents against nearby listings before each renewal season

For how long to keep the paperwork, the IRS page How long should I keep records? says records connected with property should be kept until the period of limitations expires for the year you dispose of the property, because you need them for depreciation and for working out gain or loss when you sell.

How much time it takes

Time depends on the age of the building, the tenants and how far you live from it. Write down your own numbers for a month; it is the only honest budget. Here is how one owner might lay it out.

Example a made-up 20 unit building. Weekly: rent check 30 minutes, repair requests 60 minutes, property walk 45 minutes, bookkeeping 30 minutes, vacancy work 60 minutes, for 225 minutes, or 3.75 hours a week. Over a year that is 3.75 x 52 = 195 hours, or 16.25 hours a month. Monthly close, rent roll and report add 4.5 hours, so the routine takes about 20.75 hours a month in total.

If your own log comes out far above that, look for the task that eats the time. It is usually chasing late rent by hand, or bookkeeping done once a year instead of once a week.

Keep the routine small

One bank account per property, so matching rent is a short list, not a hunt.
One place for repair requests, so nothing lives only in your text messages.
Templates for the notices you send often: late rent, entry notice, renewal offer.
A shared calendar for lease end dates, inspections and the monthly close.

Each of these removes a decision you would otherwise make every week.

How DoorKeeping fits the routine

DoorKeeping is built for owners who manage their own apartments. You run the weekly and monthly checks by asking Claude or ChatGPT, for example 'who has not paid this month?' or 'show me the rent roll for Maple Court', and you approve anything involving money or a legal step with one tap in the web app. Each property keeps its own books, with expense accounts mapped to Schedule E lines. Tenants pay your own bank directly, so DoorKeeping never holds rent, and bank feeds match each deposit to the right rent charge.

Sources

IRS, Publication 527, Residential Rental Property, read Oct 29, 2026
IRS, How long should I keep records?, read Oct 29, 2026

Questions

How many units can one person self-manage?: There is no fixed number. It depends on the building, the tenants and how organized the routine is. Track your hours for a month and decide from your own log.
What should I do every month as a landlord?: Close the books, update the rent roll, look 90 days ahead at lease end dates, write a short report on income, expenses and who is behind, and do recurring maintenance.
How often should I inspect my apartments?: Many owners walk the common areas weekly and each unit once a quarter, with the notice their lease and state law require before entering.