Peter Lohmann's Newsletter - Issue #181

Mass confusion. Scammers on the rise.

Author

Peter Lohmann
March 06, 2026

A no-fluff, twice-weekly publication for the property management industry.

Mass Confusion

I believe we’re on the brink of sweeping changes to how property management companies (and all small service businesses) will need to market themselves.

For decades now, the path has actually been very clear:

  1. Figure out how to rank well on Google [Organic, Paid, Maps].

  2. Profit

Google has controlled the attention of our customers (property owners) by building great products like Search and Maps and directing their eyeballs to our website or phone # when it was in Google’s best interest. All the noise in marketing (for the most part) over the last 20 years has been about “how to get Google to do that more often for our companies compared to our competitors.”

HOWEVER.

That’s all about to change. Early data from the 2026 PM Trends Report shows that the vast majority of property owners are planning to use AI tools like ChatGPT to find their next property manager. NOT Google!

Tens of thousands of property managers now ask in unison:
“How do I rank well in AI search results?”

Nobody knows. And it changes weekly. Mass confusion.

I don’t have answers, but if you’re spending thousands of dollars a month on SEO, you may want to start scaling that back. Web pages aren’t going to be something humans read for much longer, which means the tools that scrape and rank them will be using totally different criteria in the very near future.

Want more details about our AI future from the PM Trends Report? Catch the introduction live on stage at NARPM Broker/Owner. Yours truly and Jordan Muela will be bringing you the straight dope, in collaboration with Harris Poll.

THIS ISSUE IS PRESENTED BY PLANOMATIC

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What 475 Property Management Offices Have Learned About Growth (with Steve Hart, CEO of PMI)

Most property managers think small: a few hundred doors, maybe a second office if things go well. Steve Hart thought bigger.

In this week’s podcast, I sat down with the CEO and co-founder of Property Management Inc. (PMI), a franchise platform with 475+ locations and roughly 35,000 doors under management. We dig into how they built it, why their “five pillar” model (residential, HOA, commercial, multifamily, and short-term rentals) works, and how their franchisees are now buying up PM companies across the country.

One insight that stood out: the biggest growth bottleneck for most operators happens around 100 doors. Breaking through requires a mindset shift - from solo operator to systems builder. Steve has seen it hundreds of times across the PMI network, and his take on how to push past that plateau is worth hearing.

(Available on Apple Podcasts & Spotify)

Property Management Companies For Sale This Week

  • Boutique residential PM company in Denver, CO (asking $240k, ~$493k gross revenue)

  • ~250-door residential PM portfolio in Hendersonville, NC (~$669k revenue)

  • Established 2012 residential PM firm in Austin, TX managing ~230 homes (asking $1.1M)

  • Here’s a PM company for sale in Rhode Island (asking $1.1M, ~$930k in revenue)

  • This residential PM company in Bend, OR is still available (asking $650k, ~$361k annual revenue, ~224 long-term units under management)

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Industry News & Events

Closing Thought

[Swap out “institutionally owned detached houses” for literally anything you care about, and this statement is still true. It’s a sad state of affairs.]

A few quick things before you go…

  • Last week’s issue went to 20,797 readers (59% opened, 4% clicked)

  • The most popular link was UtilityProfit’s Utility Lookup Tool (143 clicks)

  • Property managers: Your professional trade association is NARPM. You need to join if you’re not already a member.

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PeterBot Question of the Week:

Question submitted by Kevin Moyer

If you have any pressing PM questions, chat with PeterBot, my AI clone (try the audio). It’s trained on almost everything I’ve ever written or said, and can help you talk through your most challenging PM questions and problems. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Software I’m using to scale my 700+ door property management company:

Note: These are affiliate links, but I’ve been recommending all these companies long before any financial arrangements came into place.

The content of this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. I may have consulting agreements with, or financial interests in, companies mentioned in this newsletter. Additionally, some of the links included in this newsletter are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links. Always perform your own due diligence before making any financial or business decisions.