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Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

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Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#1
Hey HN, we are Remen, Ben, and Nick, the founders of Propify (https://getpropify.com), an API aggregator for residential property management. We abstract over archaic APIs and merge them into a single modern API for the real estate industry, giving companies access to multiple property management systems (PMSs) via a REST API. Think merge.dev or Plaid for real estate.

Property managers nowadays use software to operate residential rental properties. Our customers are not these property managers directly, but companies who provide services to both property managers and renters. Our customers are solving problems around resident screening, security, parking, maintenance, etc., which property managers typically outsource.

Compared to most other industries in 2023, property management still runs on old tech with bad/wrong/absent API documentation. Creating and maintaining integrations with these systems is incredibly painful (1999 called and wants to tell you about its cool new SOAP technology!)

As an example of what we’re solving for, one prospective customer told us they regularly get 503 (service unavailable) errors from one of these PMSs at the beginning of each month because the system can’t process rent payments and other requests at the same time. We address challenges like this using an exponential backoff retry strategy.

We abstract over all these APIs to give our customers software they can reasonably use. Our goal is to eliminate old tech, poor docs, and unreliable infra for our customers so they can focus on delivering value instead of fighting with integrations.

We offer a tested RESTful API with accurate documentation and modern architecture that we can scale. In addition, we want to make the developer experience as good as possible with things like webhooks, SDKs, websockets, and even a GraphQL API (coming later this year).

Before Propify, we built a rent payment app to bridge the technology gap between renters and landlords. Then we encountered the pain of PMS integrations and decided to pivot and solve that problem instead.

dang suggested that we include a product demo or video but since our core product is an API, there’s not that much to show—sorry! But our docs are here: https://docs.getpropify.com/, and if you’re working/interested in this space and have your own credentials for one of our supported integrations, we’ll be happy to get you a sandbox account and a demo.

This industry has been stagnant because of the barrier to entry for integrating with these vital PM systems. Our goal is to unlock innovation by pulling real estate tech into the modern world. Developer experience is incredibly important to us, and we are actively looking for areas where we can improve. We welcome your feedback, questions, and comments!

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#2
Can you give some example use cases for this? For context I own some investment properties and have a property manager who manages them, so I have some familiarity with tools like Appfolio (but probably not as much as you'd expect your target customer to have).

I'm just curious what this would be used for. Maybe user story style - as I would be able to .

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#3
I’ve seen a lot of appfolio usage in the rental application process in the last two years. https://www.appfolio.com/

I’m wondering if that tooling is more customer facing and the Propify solution is more I don’t know business to business oriented for the folks that serve property managers? It’s interesting to see this space take off into tech, better than mailing a check and doing email tag.

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#6
post #3

I’ve seen a lot of appfolio usage in the rental application process in the last two years. https://www.appfolio.com/ I’m wondering if that tooling is more customer facing and the Propify solution is more I don’t know business to business oriented for the folks that serve property managers? It’s interesting to see this space take off into tech, better than mailing a check and doing email tag.

You are 100% correct. Propify is focused on the relationships between companies like the rental application processors and the property managers who use systems like Appfolio. We really appreciate the kind words and hope to be as helpful as possible in pushing this industry forward!

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#7
post #5

Should probably clarify in the title that this is for property management, not real estate. MLS data is notoriously impossible to get without huge contracts, which is what made want to check this out.

I misread it the same way--I've been praying for a good API to do some housing affordability data projects.

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#8

Can you give some example use cases for this? For context I own some investment properties and have a property manager who manages them, so I have some familiarity with tools like Appfolio (but probably not as much as you'd expect your target customer to have). I'm just curious what this would be used for. Maybe user story style - as I would be able to .

Of course! Let me give this a shot with a couple examples in your suggested format...

- As an engineer for a tenant background check company, I can use Propify to easily integrate with systems like Entrata, Buildium and Propertyware so that I only need to create a single integration instead of 3.

- As a sales rep for a property maintenance company, I can confidently sell into new property managers who use systems that we don't integrate with yet because I know a new integration for our engineering team is basically like flipping a switch.

Re: Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator

#10
post #5

Should probably clarify in the title that this is for property management, not real estate. MLS data is notoriously impossible to get without huge contracts, which is what made want to check this out.

Updated. Thanks for the feedback!
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