We're building the tool we always needed

Why Roost exists

It's 11pm on a Sunday when your phone buzzes. The hot water system has failed. You spend the next hour texting tradies who won't respond until morning, searching for contact details you should have saved, and wondering if the last service was even logged.

This is self-management without the right tools.

We know because we've lived it - across properties in Australia, US and India. We chose to self-manage for good reasons: control over our investments and keeping the 6-10% we'd otherwise pay an agent. But the reality was constant interruptions, scattered information, and the nagging sense we were always one oversight away from a problem.

Hiring an agent didn't feel like the answer either. Paying thousands annually for slow responses and limited transparency on decisions being made about our assets felt equally wrong.

We kept thinking there had to be a better option. When we couldn't find it, we built it.

What we learned

The challenge with self-management isn't the concept - it's the tools.

Every solution we tried felt incomplete:

• Enterprise software built for agencies with hundreds of properties
• Basic templates that left compliance questions unanswered
• Spreadsheets that worked until they broke
• Apps that solved one problem while creating coordination nightmares elsewhere

What we needed was straightforward: software that handled all of the administrative work without removing control. Tools that understood local rental regulations. A system that's simple, intuitive, and brings clarity instead of adding complexity.

That's what Roost is.

What Roost does

Roost is an administrative assistant for rental properties.

It handles the systematic work of self-management:

• Bank feeds auto-categorize rent and expenses
• Photo-verified inspections create clear condition records
• State-compliant leases stay current with regulatory changes
• Maintenance requests are tracked with full documentation
• Compliance requirements are monitored and flagged
• Tax reports generate in seconds, not hours

You make every decision. We organize the execution.

Why regional compliance matters

Rental regulations vary significantly by jurisdiction. Lease requirements, compliance rules, safety certificates, bond handling, notice periods - what's required in one region often doesn't apply in another. Generic global software tends to oversimplify these differences.

We built Roost to handle real regulatory complexity:

• Jurisdiction-specific lease templates that update with legislative changes
• Integration with local banking systems in supported countries
• Compliance tracking adapted to regional requirements
• Workflows designed around how landlords and tenants actually operate in each market

Not one-size-fits-all software - built to respect the differences that matter.

Our approach

Self-management shouldn't require choosing between control and peace of mind. Good tools make both possible.

When landlords have better systems, tenants benefit too. Clearer communication. Faster repairs. Fair documentation. Better outcomes for everyone involved.

What we promise

Who we are

We are experienced technologists who started this journey as frustrated landlords and operators who had seen both sides of property management: the high-fee, low-transparency agency model and the patchwork of generic tools that never quite worked. We kept asking a simple question: what if self-management could be safer, smoother, and more professional than outsourcing?

That question became this platform - a product built from the ground up for local legislation, real landlord and tenant workflows, and a future where owners don't have to choose between "do everything yourself" and "hand over the keys to an agent."

We are building Roost - the platform we always wanted to use.

What's next

We're starting with core essentials: accounting, virtual inspections, compliant leases, and maintenance coordination. From there, we'll expand based on what you need - more states, more integrations, more tools that solve real problems.

The goal isn't feature bloat. It's building the right things well.

Join the pilot

We're onboarding our first 100 landlords.