A simple site for a small landlord

If you have two doors, or twelve, you probably don’t need a giant property system. You need a page people can understand: what’s available, how to inquire, the rules, and who handles a leak. AppFolio and the rest exist for managers with staff. A small landlord needs a brochure that doesn’t lie.

Most of the email you get is the same five questions: is it available, what’s the rent, pets, parking, how do I apply. Answer them on the site and the noise drops. The leftover mail is people who actually want the unit.

Small courtyard apartment building — the scale these landlord sites are built for — A handful of doors, not a REIT. The site should match that scale.

Honest unit cards

Beds, baths, a rent range, a few photos. Don’t pretend you’re Zillow. When a unit is taken, change the card that day. “Available” on a rented apartment makes people mad and makes you look sloppy. If rent depends on credit or term, give a range and say you’ll confirm in email — don’t invent a fake “from $0.”

Courtyard Lets treats residences as cards plus a building story. It’s a brochure, not a live MLS feed. Update availability in /admin the same afternoon a lease signs. If you only have two photos of a unit, use two. Don’t pad with hallway shots of a different building.

Courtyard Lets design — quiet leasing brochure for a small building — Courtyard Lets — units as cards, not a property dashboard.

Two forms, labeled

One for people who want to rent. One for tenants who need a repair — if you want that. Don’t make both say “Contact us.” Applicants will pick the wrong one, and a leak email sitting in a “new tenant” pile is how you get a Saturday flood.

Two-Door Ledger splits applications and maintenance on purpose so the inbox sorts itself. If you don’t want tenant repairs on the public site, delete that form in admin after we install. Don’t leave a dead button.

Two-Door Ledger design — duplex units in a simple ledger — Two-Door — a tidy ledger, not a resort brand.

House keys and a lease folder on a table — Keys, rules, who to call when something breaks. That’s the brochure.

Rules up front

Pets, parking, smoking, lease length, quiet hours, who pays utilities. It feels unfriendly until you skip it and spend a Saturday arguing. Put it in writing. Attach a PDF once it’s final — don’t leave “rules coming soon” live. If the PDF and the page disagree, the page is what people believe.

Deposits and application steps belong next to the inquire form: what you need (ID, proof of income), how long you take to answer, whether you charge an application fee. You don’t need a tenant portal for that. You need sentences.

Long-term vs short-stay

A duplex lease and a weekend room are different sites. Don’t force both into one layout. Short-stay is Harbor Inn: rooms, seasons, and inquiry for dates. It is not a booking engine and does not fake inventory. Keep seasonal copy current or guests (and Google) stop trusting you. If a weekend is booked, mark it. If you close January, say so on the first screen.

What we set up

Flask on a box you rent, or the files if you like doing it yourself. Landlord packs are $79–$109 for the zip. Get it online is $149. Ready to show people ($349) writes it like your building and sets titles so leftover demo text isn’t what Google sees. Install walkthrough: how we put a template on a VPS. Don’t submit dummy hours: before you index.

The three landlord layouts: Courtyard Lets, Two-Door Ledger, Harbor Inn. Shops and studios live on the catalog. Here’s how a job with us runs: look, pick, we stop. Prices: what it costs.

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