How Atlas Lane wants to reinvent residential property management

Atlas Lane grew, originally, out of personal frustration.
Founder Trever Faden was trying to find a property manager for his property on 17th Street, and was thoroughly unimpressed by the given options. There had to be a way to improve the system, Faden thought, and for a developer and serial entrepreneur, the answer had to be tech.
Now, with the launch of his new company, Faden is hoping that the answer is Atlas Lane.
The concept is pretty simple. There are essentially two markets in residential property management — the market managing large buildings, or groupings of large buildings, and the market managing a small number of units (think one to four). The former is generally serviced by large companies, and this is not the market Atlas Lane is interested in capturing. The latter, though, is often serviced by some unsatisfactory conglomerate of handymen or property owners or, worse, real estate agents.

This, Faden thinks, is where opportunity lies.
Atlas Lane will strive to make both tenants and property owners happy with the property management process by using technology to augment services such as securing a lease, collecting rent, managing tenants and providing maintenance and repair services. Basically the goal is to “make tenants actually like working with a property manager,” Faden said.
For example, tenants will be able to easily pay rent through an app to which their bank, credit card or debit card information is already linked. Instead of sending unanswered emails in search of maintenance help, they’ll get live troubleshooting through the app as well. There will be more, Faden promises, as the technology, and his service, evolve.
Property owners, for their part, have a dashboard where they can track rental-related expenses for tax purposes, and will receive an auto-filled Schedule E at the end of the year.
The company is launching in D.C. (and inside-the-Beltway Maryland) because, well, there are a lot of rentals in the area. And, despite the fact that it seems like a new 100-unit condo building is going up every day, there are still many smaller fish — owners with a single unit they need someone to take care of.
For Faden, Atlas Lane is an adventure into something new. He hasn’t got a background in real estate — his last tech company was in marketing. Also new to Faden is the fact that he’s now running a cash-flow business with little need for VC funding. Atlas Lane already has some customers, and is accepting more on a rolling basis, taking care to keep the quality of service high.
One gets the sense that being self-funded gives Faden a feeling of freedom and control, similar emotions, perhaps, to those Atlas Lane hopes to offer its clients.