Years of work orders add up to income for property managers.
Yes. A property management company can license its work orders and vendor bills to AI companies, provided its management agreements with property owners allow it. Anything that identifies a tenant is removed first, and screening reports stay out. Every original stays in your software, and you pick the properties and years.
Monday's leak under a kitchen sink, and the week of records it left.
Over one week, four people add to a single work order. The tenant starts it, and the property owner's approval lets the plumber finish. Every entry is dated, so anyone reading it can see which decision came first. An AI company can train a model on that order of events and teach it what a coordinator does after a request comes in.
A kitchen sink leak in unit 4B
Example- Mon 7:40 am
Maintenance requestProperty management software
A tenant reports water pooling under the kitchen sink and attaches two photos.
- Mon 9:15 am
Work orderProperty management software
The coordinator marks it urgent and assigns a plumber from the vendor list.
- Tue 10:30 am
EstimateEmail
After a first visit, the plumber prices a new drain line and asks to go ahead.
- Tue 2:05 pm
Owner approvalEmail
The price is above the approval limit in the management agreement, so the property owner signs off by reply.
- Thu 11:00 am
Vendor billAccounting software
The plumber finishes the job and sends a bill, which the office enters against the property.
- Next Mon
Owner's monthly reportAccounting softwareOutcome
The repair shows up as a line on the owner's report for the month, next to the rent collected.
How much of a repair does your software record?
Most of these sit in your property management software. The names here are plain words, so your software may label them differently.
Maintenance requests
What the tenant reported in their own words, with the photos they attached and the time it came in.
Work orders
The coordinator's notes, the vendor assigned, the priority and each status change until the job closed.
Vendor bills and payments
What each vendor charged for a job and the day the property's account paid it.
Monthly owner reports
The report each property owner gets every month, with rent in and repairs out line by line.
Email with vendors and owners
Threads where a price was questioned or a repair was approved outside the work order. Many of them explain why a job took the path it did.
Where a property manager's first call leads.
Check your fit
Tell us the size of your team and the year your oldest work orders date from.
First call
On the call, describe how a maintenance request turns into a closed work order at your company, and where each step gets recorded.
A closer look
Your bookkeeper explains how the software is set up while one of your management agreements is read.
Sourcing the right deals
We look for AI companies that want maintenance records like yours. Each one is vetted before its offer is passed to you.
Terms and payment
Your adviser reads each offer with you and explains every term. If you sign, the work orders in scope leave with tenant details removed. Payments arrive as the license schedules them.
Which rules cover tenant and owner records?
Tenant details come out of every record that goes in. Some records stay out whole.
- Tenant screening
The FTC's guidance for landlords under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) says to pull a screening report only for a permissible purpose and to destroy it so no one can read or rebuild it. Screening reports and the applications they came with stay out of scope.
- Tenant privacy
Once your company passes the size thresholds in California's privacy law (CCPA), California tenants can ask what personal information you hold about them and have it deleted. Your own staff have the same rights. The law's definition of a sale covers handing personal information to another company for money. So lease files go in only after every tenant's name and contact details become tags.
- Management agreements
Each management agreement sets terms for the records of that owner's property. A property goes into scope only once its agreement has been read, and where the wording is unclear, check with your lawyer first.
- Access codes
Lockbox and gate codes written into work orders and entry notices are cut from the licensed copy. So are notes saying when a unit will stand empty.
Which work orders earn a higher offer?
Approvals on record
A work order that shows the price, who approved it and when lets a model learn which repairs needed the property owner's sign-off.
Photos at both ends
Tenant photos when the request comes in and vendor photos at the close show the problem and the finished fix.
Years across buildings
Work orders kept for years across many properties show the same repairs in different buildings and seasons.
Little tenant detail
Most of a work order is about the repair. Once the tenant's name and unit come out, the rest still reads as a full repair record.
The questions managers bring us
Who owns the tenant and owner data in AppFolio, us or the software company?
Your subscription agreement with AppFolio, or whichever software you run, says what the vendor is allowed to do with what you enter. The management agreements you signed with property owners are a separate question, and they can limit what you license too. Bring one of each to the first call so the closer look can start from them.
Do the property owners we manage for have to approve before records are licensed?
Each management agreement answers that for its own property. Where the agreement is silent or unclear, ask that owner for written consent before the property goes in. Properties without a clear answer stay out of scope, and the others can move ahead without them.
Are tenant records too sensitive to license, even with names taken out?
Screening reports and rental applications stay out whole. A work order holds far less about the tenant: once anything that names the tenant or their unit becomes a tag, what remains describes the problem and the repair. You see the licensed copy and approve it before it leaves your business.
Can we pull years of records out of AppFolio to license them?
Your plan and your software agreement decide what you can export and in what format. During the closer look, someone checks how your work orders and bills come out of your software before anyone plans around them. Nothing leaves your account until you sign a license.
Does the size of our portfolio matter?
The fit check weighs your team and how long your records go back. A company that has logged every request and vendor bill in one system for several years can fit with a modest portfolio, and with only a year or two of records, it's early. Your fit check answers will show which side you're on.
Would licensing our records come up if we sell the company later?
Yes. A company that buys yours will ask what you licensed and on what terms, so keep the signed license and its scope list with your other contracts. A license grants a defined use of the records. The originals stay in your software, and they go with the business if you sell it.
Make your finished work orders pay the company.
Answer four questions, and you'll know whether a first call makes sense.
Prefer to write? Email hello@sixonepartners.com.