Three Imperfect Choices

Most owners pick between three versions of the same compromise. Self-management costs nothing in fees and a great deal in attention: the 9 p.m. water heater call, the applicant whose pay stubs do not survive a call to the employer, the deposit dispute that becomes a claim because condition was never documented.

The national franchise brings a recognizable brand, competent software, and a local office that is a licensee. Keyrenter South Florida states that its locations are independently owned and operated by franchisees; Real Property Management Sunstate operates under the Neighborly brand. Neither fact is a criticism. Both are structural, and both decide who makes the call on your property.

The high-volume local operator prices competitively because the portfolio is large, and it is large because the model rewards adding doors. Spread across several markets, the marginal property gets a process, not a broker.

Atlis is a fourth option: an independent Florida brokerage, small on purpose, publishing a full fee schedule and eight written guarantees, with the broker-owner on every broker-level decision. This page sets that beside what five competing firms publish.

The Four Pillars

What Management Actually Costs

Atlis prices two tiers, both published at atlispm.com/pricing. Residential management of single-family homes, townhomes and condos of one to four units is 7% to 9% of collected rent per unit, with a $200 monthly minimum. Multifamily of five or more units is 5% to 7%, minimum quoted per building. Company-wide that is a 5% to 9% range, but the residential tier is the one to set against a single-family quote.

Leasing is 75% of one month's rent per unit, rising to 100% when another agent brings the tenant and the co-broke is paid from it. Renewal is $250 residential, $150 multifamily. The annual inspection is $250 with a photo report, scoped per building for multifamily. Project coordination is free under $1,000 and 10% above it. Repairs bill at cost against the original vendor invoice.

The rate is set by property type and condition, unit count, rent and expected turnover, HOA requirements, distance from Palm Beach Gardens, and any services beyond standard scope, then locked for life once confirmed in writing. Included at no extra charge: rental analysis, professional photos and video, listing on 30-plus portals, live agent phone service, 12-point applicant and pet screening, lease preparation, move-in documentation, 24/7 maintenance response, lease enforcement and evictions, HOA administration, deposit handling, rent collection, owner reporting, ACH payments and year-end tax reporting.

Every competitor figure is quoted from that firm's own website, checked September 2026; nothing is estimated. Confirm terms directly with each firm.

What counts as a normal fee here

No independent body publishes a Palm Beach County management fee benchmark. Every “industry average” available, competitors' blogs included, originates in a management company's own marketing. Three converge: Luxury Property Care, updated March 2026, gives 8% to 10% for standard residential; Mayfair Property Management, July 2024, gives 8% to 12%; InvestPro's 2025/26 West Palm Beach guide also gives 8% to 12%. So: published guides place typical residential management at 8% to 12% of monthly rent, with 8% to 10% most cited for standard single-family homes.

Leasing is better evidenced: two market guides and two competitors' own rate cards agree on 50% to 100% of one month's rent, and the Atlis 75% sits inside that band. Run your own numbers before comparing percentages in the abstract. The ROI calculator and vacancy loss calculator show that one point of management fee is usually smaller than three weeks of vacancy.

The flat-fee model, treated fairly

Home Property Management II, founded 1985, publishes flat monthly tiers instead of a percentage: $29, $125 and $250 per month, stated on its own site as twelve-month introductory rates. Its named guarantees include a 90-day money-back guarantee, and at the Deluxe and Concierge tiers a 30-day leasing guarantee, a six-month tenant guarantee, a Results Guarantee and a Happiness Guarantee; Concierge adds landlord risk insurance covering malicious damage, lost rent and eviction. On a headline basis that is cheaper than anything Atlis charges: at $3,000 rent, 8% is $240 a month against $29.

It sits outside the table because a flat fee and a percentage cannot share a column without misleading someone. It belongs in your decision once four questions are answered in writing. What is the leasing fee? It was not published on the page checked in September 2026, and on a low monthly rate the durable economics usually sit there. What does the rate become in month thirteen? What is included at the entry tier, and what moves a property to $125 or $250? And what is the total annual cost on your property, every charge included?

For some owners the flat fee wins, and it should. A stable long-term tenant in a low-maintenance condo generates little work, and paying a percentage of rent for little work is a poor trade. The percentage model earns its keep in the opposite case: turnover, maintenance volume, a demanding HOA, a tenant who stops paying. Which of those describes your property is the question.

The Eight Guarantees, Named and Defined

A guarantee is worth reading only if it has a trigger and a remedy. Atlis publishes eight, in full, at atlispm.com/guarantees.

1. Maintenance Savings Guarantee. Round-the-clock maintenance triage, with AI-assisted troubleshooting and expert review, resolves common tenant requests remotely and reduces unnecessary vendor dispatches.
2. No-Markup Maintenance Guarantee. Standard repair bills are not marked up. Owners pay exactly what the vendor charges, with the original invoice provided for every job.
3. On-Time Rent Payout Guarantee. Rent from on-time tenant payments is processed and initiated for owner deposit by the 10th of each month. If Atlis misses it, that month's management fee is waived.
4. Tenant Placement Guarantee. If a tenant placed by Atlis defaults or must be replaced within twelve months, Atlis places a new qualified tenant at no additional leasing cost.
5. Happiness Guarantee. Cancel at any time, without penalties or exit fees.
6. Rate Lock Guarantee. The management fee percentage locked in today stays the same for the life of the partnership.
7. Results Guarantee. No management fees on vacant units. Fees are collected only once the property is leased, the tenant has moved in, and rent is in the owner's account.
8. Eviction Protection Guarantee. If a tenant screened and placed by Atlis requires eviction, Atlis covers filing fees and legal costs to $1,100 per occurrence.

What the other firms publish, stated accurately

InvestPro Properties publishes five named guarantees, and they are substantive: Pet Damage Protection up to $1,500 above the deposit; an Eviction Guarantee of $1,500 above the deposit for court, legal or attorney fees; a Tenant Performance Guarantee waiving the leasing fee if a tenant breaks the lease within six months; a Management Fee Money Back Guarantee refunding the first three months; and No Long-Term Commitments. On eviction cost alone their cap is higher than the Atlis $1,100.

Keyrenter South Florida publishes four conditional commitments that function as guarantees: no tenant in 30 days and the first-month fee is waived; a free fix if work is not done correctly; no long-term contracts; cancellation any time on 30 days' notice. Other bullets there — fast leasing, effective screening, an industry-leading low eviction rate — carry no trigger or remedy, and counting them as guarantees would misrepresent them.

Real Property Management Sunstate publishes the Neighborly Done Right Promise: if an owner is not satisfied and contacts them in writing within the first 60 days, they will “make it right to the extent we deem necessary to remedy the issue, or we will terminate the Management Agreement without penalty.” A discretionary remedy is not a defined one.

Mangrove Property Management publishes no named guarantee as of September 2026 — a statement about what is published, not how the firm operates. Luxury Property Care publishes no named program either, but states no cancellation fee on two weeks' notice, no setup or renewal fees, and attorney-led evictions.

Owner Outcomes and What Atlis Publishes About Itself

These are Atlis portfolio figures, not audited industry statistics, and are labelled that way on purpose. More than 98% of rent collected monthly. 74% of tenants renew. 21 days average time to lease. Zero evictions in four years on tenants Atlis screened and placed. A 5.0 rating on Google across 90-plus reviews, a licensed Florida brokerage under CQ1071712, and BBB Accreditation through April 2027. Worked examples are at atlispm.com/case-studies.

Representative examples of Atlis performance on Palm Beach County properties. The full library is at atlispm.com/case-studies.

The renewal figure needs context. The best primary benchmark is RealPage Analytics, November 2024: market-rate apartment renewals averaged 50.7% nationally across 2010 to 2019, reached just over 54% in the year ending October 2024, and peaked near 57% in mid-2022. Atlis manages single-family homes and condominiums, so that is context, not a like-for-like comparison, and no verified 2026 single-family benchmark exists.

On market conditions, the best-sourced figure is MIAMI REALTORS and RWorld, published 18 August 2026 on July 2026 data by Chief Economist Gay Cororaton: Palm Beach County posted South Florida's strongest rent growth at 2.5% year over year, occupancy unchanged at 95.2%. That is apartment data. This page publishes no rental days-on-market figure, because no primary source exists; the 80-day county number circulating online measures for-sale listings.

Head to Head: Six Firms

All entries reflect each firm's own website as checked in September 2026. A Google rating is shown for Atlis only: no competing firm displays a verifiable Google figure, and this page will not relabel a review count from another platform. Luxury Property Care self-reports 4.9 stars and 220-plus reviews as its own claim.

Why the Structure Changes the Outcome

A franchise operator answers to a brand standard written for a national network; a high-volume operator answers to a portfolio spread across several markets. Both can be run well. Neither offers what an independent brokerage can: the person holding the license decides, same day, and owns the consequence. Every broker-level call at Atlis goes to the broker-owner, which works only because the portfolio is deliberately small.

Triage before dispatch

The largest controllable expense in residential management is not the management fee. It is maintenance, much of it spent sending a vendor to a problem that did not need one. Atlis triages every request around the clock, with AI-assisted troubleshooting and expert review, before anyone is dispatched: a disposal needing a reset, a tripped breaker, a filter never changed. When a vendor is required the bill passes through at cost with the invoice attached, because the No-Markup Maintenance Guarantee removes any incentive to dispatch. A firm earning a percentage on every repair is asked to talk itself out of revenue. The process is at atlispm.com/maintenance-services.

Prevention-first screening

Zero evictions in four years on Atlis-placed tenants is neither luck nor leniency. It is a 12-point applicant and pet screening standard applied identically every time: employment verified by live call, the prior landlord contacted as well as the current one, and income, credit and rental history read together rather than as pass-fail gates. Careful screening costs a few days of vacancy; skipping it costs a Florida eviction. The standard is at atlispm.com/tenant-screening.

Neighborhood depth, not a service-area list

Every firm here claims to know the area; the test is whether it publishes anything proving it. Atlis maintains community-level rental guides, not a coverage map, because a house in Palm Beach Gardens with a mandatory-membership country club HOA does not price or turn over like one in Jupiter, an equestrian-season rental in Wellington, a downtown condo in West Palm Beach, or a gated lease in Boca Raton. Approval timelines, HOA fees, seasonal demand and rent bands differ across a few miles. The county view is at Palm Beach County property management; owners of five or more units should start with multifamily management.

If You Are Not Renting the Home Out

A fee comparison is irrelevant to the owner whose home sits empty eight months a year. That owner needs someone in the house on a schedule. Atlis runs a home watch and estate care program: Atlis Watch at $295 per month, Atlis Estate at $595, and Private Client from $1,195. Every tier includes two full interior walk-throughs a month with a written photo note, vendors billed at cost, a four-hour response guarantee backed by a monthly credit, and a free month if a visit is missed.

Served areas include Jupiter, Jupiter Island, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach Island, North Palm Beach, Singer Island, Boca Raton, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Manalapan, with terms at atlispm.com/homewatch-estate-care. Short-term and vacation rental operation is outside what Atlis does; an owner wanting nightly bookings needs a specialist.

The Broker Behind the Brokerage

Jean Christian Taveras is Broker-Owner of Atlis Property Management LLC and Atlis Realty, and a Florida Licensed Real Estate Broker, licence CQ1071712. The Atlis Realty brokerage licence is CQ1069932. Both are searchable on the state's public register — the only credential check that matters here, and it takes a minute.

Atlis is headquartered at 3801 PGA Blvd., Ste. 600, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410, reachable at 561.473.3664 and info@atlispm.com, and is BBB Accredited through April 2027. Jean operates atlispm.com, atlisre.com and TourAvenir.com, the marketing portal for the Avenir master-planned community, and works across Palm Beach County residential property management, luxury leasing and investor services. He personally handles broker-level decisions on every Atlis-managed property.

That is the whole bio, and the brevity is deliberate. A page criticising competitors for claims an owner cannot verify has no business making one of its own.

Six Steps for Evaluating Any Manager

Use it on Atlis as readily as on anyone else. If a firm fails three of six, keep looking.

1. Verify the licence. Ask for the broker's number and check the state register, which shows status and disciplinary history. Florida requires a licence to manage property for compensation.
2. Get the whole fee schedule in writing first. Management percentage, leasing, renewal, inspection, coordination, and anything per event. If pricing is only discussed on a call, that is information too.
3. Ask what happens to repair invoices. Does the owner see the original, and is anything added? A 10% maintenance markup can exceed the gap between an 8% and a 10% fee.
4. Read each guarantee for trigger and remedy. A promise with no consequence for the company is a slogan. Ask what happens and who decides.
5. Ask how applications are screened. Is employment verified by phone, are prior landlords contacted, who signs off a marginal file. Screening is where evictions are prevented.
6. Establish who answers in a crisis. At 11 p.m. on a Saturday with water through a ceiling, is it a licensed decision-maker, a call centre, or voicemail.

Five mistakes owners make

Shopping on the management percentage alone. At $3,000 rent, one point is $360 a year; three avoidable weeks of vacancy is about $2,070. Ignoring the leasing fee. It is the largest charge in any year with a turnover, runs 50% to 100% of a month's rent here, and is most often missing from a low headline.

Treating a published rate as current. Mangrove's fee page is legitimately published and self-dated January 2021; check the date before building a comparison on it. Accepting review counts at face value. A rating on a company's own site is that company's claim. Choosing before reading the exit clause. Notice period, termination fee, whether tenant files and deposits transfer, and who holds the deposit matter most when the relationship fails. Both sides are covered at the owner FAQ and the management agreement FAQ.

Where Atlis Fits, and Where It Does Not

Atlis fits the owner of one to roughly a dozen residential units in Palm Beach County who wants a named licensed broker accountable for the property and would rather read a fee schedule than sit through a pitch. It also fits multifamily owners of five or more units, and seasonal owners who need a home watched rather than leased. It does not fit an owner whose only criterion is the lowest monthly headline, short-term rental operation, institutional portfolios where broker review becomes the bottleneck, or an owner who wants screening standards overridden to fill a vacancy faster.

Switching Managers, in Four Steps

Owners stay with a manager they have stopped trusting because changing feels disruptive. It takes a few weeks, and tenants barely notice.

One: read your current agreement. Find the notice period, any termination fee, and what the outgoing manager must hand over. Most require 30 days' notice. Atlis charges nothing to cancel, under the Happiness Guarantee.

Two: give written notice and copy the new manager. The handover list is specific: executed lease and addenda, the security deposit with its Florida statutory disclosure, tenant contacts, ledgers, keys, gate and HOA access, and open work orders.

Three: introduce the tenant properly. A tenant told clearly who to pay, how to submit maintenance and what is not changing does not treat the transition as an opportunity.

Four: reset the baseline. A full inspection with a photo report fixes condition at the handover date, so responsibility for anything found later is not a debate. Start at atlispm.com/contact, or price the alternative first with the rent or sell calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions