Rentals & short stays case study

PropMS

A landlord and Airbnb ecosystem: rent, deposits, bookings and payouts, with tenants on USSD.

The problem

Landlords and short-stay hosts chased rent by phone, tracked deposits in notebooks and waited for caretakers to bank the cash. Many tenants don't have smartphones.

Who PropMS serves

Four sides, each with its own app, all running on one shared core.

Landlords

Landlord portal

Manage properties, units and tenants, with bulk import
Bill rent, water and electricity each month
Collect deposits and settle them at move-out
Receive rent straight to a phone, till or paybill
Get an SMS each time a tenant pays

Caretakers

Caretaker access

Onboard tenants on site
Send an M-Pesa prompt for rent or deposit
Handle maintenance issues

Tenants

USSD menu, works on any phone

Log in with a PIN
Check rent balance
Pay by M-Pesa prompt
Report a repair
Join a waitlist for a vacant unit

Short-stay hosts

Bookings

Set nightly rates
Record check-in and check-out
Invoice automatically at booking
Send guest reminders

Shared core

FastAPI backend
M-Pesa collections and B2C/B2B payouts
SMS and USSD gateway
Postgres with categorised transactions
Ops console for jobs and errors

Outcome

Every shilling is categorised as rent, water, electricity, deposit or short stay, and it moves from tenant to landlord without passing through cash.

Stack

Python, FastAPI, Next.js, Postgres, M-Pesa, SasaPay, Africa's Talking, USSD

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