Custom PropTech Platform: Building a Complete Property Management Operating System

The Problem: Property Management Operations Demands a Full System

Property management companies don’t fail because the market isn’t there. They fail because the operational complexity of running real estate at scale hits a wall that no off-the-shelf tool was built to handle.

Screening applicants, executing leases, collecting rent across multiple payment methods, managing maintenance, paying out unit owners, keeping accounting clean, and staying compliant across two countries — that’s not a workflow problem. It’s an operating system problem.

Rentatee came to Jetpack Labs with a clear product vision and a growing customer base in Canada and the US. What they needed was a platform sophisticated enough to match both. Not a feature addition. A full build.

The Client: Rentatee’s Property Management Vision

Rentatee is a North America-based, remote-first SaaS company operating in the PropTech space. Their customers are property management companies running residential portfolios across Canada and the US — from boutique operators managing a handful of buildings to firms with hundreds of units across multiple property types.

The product vision was to replace the stack of disconnected tools most property managers rely on (spreadsheets, email, separate payment portals, manual lease documents) with a single platform that handles everything from first inquiry to final payout.

Jetpack Labs was brought in as the engineering partner to design and build that platform.

The Challenge: Solving Property Management at Scale

Running a property management company at scale means coordinating a lot of moving parts simultaneously. For every unit, there’s a leasing pipeline (listings, inquiries, applications, screening, approval), a lease lifecycle (document creation, e-signature, onboarding, renewals, move-out), a payments layer (rent collection, maintenance fees, owner payouts), and an operations layer (maintenance requests, vendor coordination, tenant communication).

Most platforms solve one of these well. None solve all of them together.

For Rentatee’s customers, the gap showed up everywhere:

• Listings had to be manually re-entered into Zillow and Apartments.com
• Tenant screening happened outside the platform, breaking the application workflow
• Lease documents were created in Word and signed via a separate e-signature tool
• Rent collection ran through 2-3 different payment systems depending on country
• Unit owner reporting was done in spreadsheets, manually reconciled each month
• Maintenance requests arrived by text and email with no tracking or audit trail

The ask wasn’t “fix these problems one at a time.” The ask was: build the system that makes all of them disappear.

Building the Platform: Architecture & Core Systems

Jetpack Labs designed and built Rentatee as a multi-application, multi-tenant SaaS platform: a Laravel API, a Vue 3 + TypeScript web application, and a separate admin panel, deployed serverless on AWS via Laravel Vapor. Real-time features run over Pusher. File storage runs across AWS S3 and Cloudflare R2. The system supports both Canada and the US with region-specific payment processors, KYC providers, screening integrations, and fee structures.

The platform is organized around four operational pillars:

Leasing pipeline. From a synced listing on Zillow or Apartments.com to a screened applicant to a countersigned lease, every step lives inside one workflow. Listing creation, inquiry management, a 22-stage candidate CRM, multi-applicant applications with data snapshots, intelligent screening rules with 30+ configurable criteria, Verifast integration for background and credit checks, PDF lease templates with field mapping, and e-signature for both parties — including external signing with no account required.

Payments and accounting. Four payment processors (BlueSnap, Paysafe, Checkbook, Plaid) cover credit card, ACH/EFT, and digital checks across both countries. Scheduled payment runs, retry logic, partial payments, refunds, and processing fee pass-through are all handled in-platform. A full double-entry accounting ledger tracks every transaction. Owner statements are generated per period, reviewed and approved in the platform, and paid out automatically with management fee deductions calculated.

Operations layer. Maintenance requests move through a structured workflow from submission to resolution, with vendor assignment and entry preference management. A drip campaign system with audience segmentation and per-step analytics handles prospect nurturing. Real-time chat connects prospects to leasing agents and tenants to property managers. Announcements reach tenants company-wide. Every action on every major object is logged in a full audit trail.

Platform infrastructure. Multi-tenant from the ground up, with a Company → Portfolio → Building → Unit data hierarchy. Six user roles with granular permission scoping (super admin, admin, accounting, manager, employee, unit owner, tenant, prospect). Feature flags via Laravel Pennant for controlled rollouts. SQID-encoded IDs on every API response. Full soft deletes across all major models. Parallel test execution across 40 processes.

Execution: From Onboarding to Payment Operations

To receive payments, property management companies go through a multi-step KYC onboarding wizard that covers business entity information, beneficial owners, bank account setup, and compliance document submission — with separate flows for Paysafe (Canada) and BlueSnap (US). The entire process runs inside the platform.

Once live, a tenant’s journey through Rentatee looks like this: they find a listing synced to Zillow, submit an inquiry, get added to the leasing pipeline as a prospect, complete a multi-section application alongside any co-applicants, get screened automatically via Verifast (credit, employment, criminal background, 30+ scoring criteria), receive an approval decision, countersign their lease via e-signature without needing an account, set up ACH or credit card auto-pay, and start submitting maintenance requests from day one. Everything from first touch to first rent payment lives in one system.

On the property manager side, the platform surfaces what matters. The dashboard shows occupancy, cash flow, and maintenance status in real time. The candidate CRM tracks every lead through a 22-stage pipeline with source attribution across 18 channels including Google Ads, Meta Ads, and referral. Rent roll, move-in/out, cash flow, and traffic reports are available on demand and exportable. Drip campaigns run automatically against segmented audiences. Owner statements generate, get approved, and trigger payouts without manual reconciliation.

Key modules shipped:

• Listings with Zillow Group and Apartments.com syndication
• Embeddable listing widgets and lead capture forms for third-party sites
• 22-stage candidate CRM with bulk operations and CSV export
• Intelligent screening rules (30+ configurable criteria per listing)
• Verifast screening integration (Basic, Comprehensive, Criminal — US)
• Multi-applicant applications with frozen data snapshots
• PDF lease template builder with field mapping wizard
• E-signature with external (no-auth) signing support
• Full lease lifecycle including renewals, move-out, and co-signors
• Four payment processors (BlueSnap, Paysafe, Checkbook, Plaid)
• Scheduled payment runs with retry logic and partial payment support
• Application fees, onboarding fees, and processing fee pass-through
• Double-entry accounting ledger with duplicate detection
• Owner payout automation with management fee calculations
• Per-period owner statements with approval workflow
• 12-type maintenance request system with vendor assignment
• Drip campaign engine with segmentation, sequencing, and analytics
• Real-time chat (Pusher) for prospect and tenant communication
• Bulk CSV import for units, tenants, floor plans, and leads
• 10+ report types including rent roll, traffic, cash flow, and move-in/out
• Company-level activity log and full model-level audit trail
• Google Maps integration for address lookup and geocoding
• HubSpot CRM integration
• Multi-region (CA + US), multi-currency (CAD + USD)
• Serverless deployment on AWS via Laravel Vapor

006 The Result

Rentatee launched with a platform that could support the full operational lifecycle of a property management company at scale, without stitching together separate tools for leasing, payments, compliance, and reporting.

• The full leasing pipeline runs inside one system, from synced listing to countersigned lease
• Payments work across four processors and two countries, with automated reconciliation and owner payouts
• Property managers have real-time visibility into occupancy, cash flow, and maintenance across their entire portfolio
• Unit owners have a dedicated portal for statements and payouts, replacing manual monthly reporting
• Drip campaigns, screening, and e-signatures removed the manual steps that slowed onboarding and follow-up

The platform is live, operating at scale, and built to grow.

The Outcome: A Complete Property Management Operating System

Rentatee is a complete PropTech operating system: 25+ modules, 6 user roles, 4 payment processors, 2 listing syndication integrations, multi-tenant architecture, and full coverage of the property management lifecycle from first inquiry to final payout.