Dayton Proper manages single-family and small multi-family rentals in the city of Dayton and across Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Warren counties. Our office is on Salem Avenue. Our maintenance techs live here. The person who answers your call has walked your street.
We are also the only management company in this market that will actively help you buy the next one. Tell us your buy box and we bring you deals that match it, off-market first.
Dayton is not one rental market
This is the thing that separates owners who do well here from owners who do not. Dayton is a collection of neighborhoods with genuinely different rent levels, tenant profiles, turnover rates and capital needs, sitting inside one city boundary and one set of comps if you are lazy about it.
A house in the historic districts near downtown does not rent like a house in the northwest quadrant, and neither rents like a house near the University of Dayton. Pricing a Dayton property off a citywide average produces a number that is wrong almost everywhere.
We price street by street, because that is the resolution this city actually operates at. If you want to see how granular we get about Dayton geography, we have written up most of the neighborhoods in the city individually.
The compliance issue most Dayton landlords get wrong
Lead-based paint disclosure on pre-1978 housing
A very large share of Dayton’s rental housing predates 1978, which puts it squarely inside the federal lead-based paint disclosure rule. If your property was built before 1978, federal law requires you to give every tenant the EPA-approved information pamphlet, disclose any known lead-based paint or hazards and any records you hold, and include a specific disclosure attachment as part of the lease — signed, and retained.
This is not a formality and it is not state law you can negotiate around in the lease. Penalties for non-compliance are federal, they are per violation, and they escalate. Self-managing owners with older Dayton houses miss this constantly, usually because nobody ever told them it applied to a single rental property.
We handle the disclosure and retention as part of every lease we write on pre-1978 stock. If you are self-managing an older Dayton property and this is the first you are hearing of it, that is worth fixing this week regardless of who manages for you.
What we handle
- Leasing and marketing — listing, syndication, showings, and renting at the right number rather than the fast one.
- Tenant screening — credit, income, rental history, criminal and eviction search, applied consistently and within fair housing rules.
- Rent collection — online payments, real late-fee enforcement, and a delinquency process that starts on day one rather than day thirty.
- Maintenance and inspections — 24/7 intake, vetted local vendors, documented move-in and move-out condition.
- Accounting and reporting — monthly statements, year-end 1099s, and a portal you can pull numbers from at 11pm without emailing anyone.
- Evictions — filed correctly and quickly, because in Ohio a procedural mistake costs you another month.
- Section 8 and housing choice vouchers — inspections, rent reasonableness, and the Greater Dayton Premier Management paperwork.
- Small multi-family — duplexes through small apartment buildings.
What it costs
Ten percent of monthly rent or $75 per month, whichever is greater. A flat $750 leasing fee when we place a new tenant. $500 on a renewal. No setup fee, no onboarding fee, no separate rent collection fee.
The entire schedule — including maintenance markup, notice posting and eviction handling — is published at what we charge. You are reading it instead of filling out a form, which is deliberate.
Where your Dayton eviction gets filed
Evictions on properties inside the city of Dayton are filed in Dayton Municipal Court. That is not the same court as Kettering, Vandalia, Miamisburg, or the Montgomery County Municipal Court divisions that cover Huber Heights, Riverside and Trotwood.
Ohio eviction runs under ORC Chapter 1923 and requires a three-day notice containing specific statutory language. A notice missing that wording, or a case filed in the wrong venue, gets dismissed and you begin again. We keep a full breakdown of which court covers which community in this region.
This is general information about Ohio law, not legal advice. For a specific dispute, talk to an Ohio attorney.
We manage across all of Montgomery County — the courts, tax calendar and auditor are county-level, so it is worth knowing how the whole county works if you hold more than one property.
Two Ohio rules worth knowing before you self-manage
- Security deposit interest. Under ORC 5321.16, where the deposit exceeds one month’s rent or $50, whichever is greater, and the tenant stays six months or longer, the excess accrues five percent simple interest annually.
- Thirty days to return. Deposits and an itemized statement of deductions are due within thirty days of termination and delivery of possession. Missing that window exposes you to double damages and the tenant’s attorney fees.
- Landlord duties under ORC 5321.04 apply regardless of what your lease says. A clause shifting a statutory duty onto the tenant is generally unenforceable.
Your insurance is only as good as our last conversation
We own an insurance agency, and that changes what we catch. The three failures we see most on Dayton properties: a homeowners policy still in force on a house that is now a rental, which is a claim waiting to be denied; a dwelling fire policy with no loss-of-rents endorsement, leaving you paying the mortgage on an unlivable house; and coverage that quietly lapses during vacancy because most standard forms restrict it past thirty or sixty days.
Because we manage the property, we know when it goes vacant, when the roof gets replaced and when the tenant moves in. Because we are also the agency, we can act on it. Ingram Insurance Group writes landlord and rental property coverage across Ohio, and a policy review costs nothing whether or not we manage for you.
More on the coverage gaps we see most often on Dayton-area rentals.
Tell us your buy box
You tell us your criteria — price ceiling, minimum cash-on-cash, neighborhoods you will and will not touch, condition tolerance, turnkey versus value-add. We write it down and screen inventory against it before it lists.
Owners we manage for sell. Tired landlords call us before they call an agent. You see those first, underwritten with our own rent comps, because we set the rents on those streets. If you buy it, we lease it and manage it — no handoff, no second onboarding, no gap where it sits empty.
Submit your buy box, or underwrite deals yourself with the Ingram Rental Calculator.
Everywhere we manage
Montgomery County: Dayton, Kettering, Centerville, Oakwood, Riverside, Trotwood, Huber Heights, West Carrollton, Miamisburg, Germantown, Moraine, Vandalia, Englewood, Clayton.
Greene County: Beavercreek, Fairborn, Xenia, Bellbrook.
Miami County: Tipp City, Troy. Warren County: Springboro.
Dayton property management questions
How many properties do I need to work with you?
One. Several of our owners started with a single inherited house and now hold a portfolio. That progression is the business we are actually in.
I live out of state. Does that work?
Yes, and a good share of our owners do. What matters is that someone competent is physically here, which is the part that fails when out-of-state owners hire a manager without real local presence.
Who talks to my tenant?
We do. Maintenance intake runs 24/7 and routine issues never reach you. You hear from us above your approval threshold, which you set.
Can I keep my own contractor?
Yes, provided they carry current liability coverage and workers compensation and will respond inside our timelines. Plenty of owners keep a trusted HVAC or roofing relationship.
I already have a property manager.
Most agreements have a 30-day out and we handle the transfer, including the sitting tenant relationship. See how switching works.
Do you manage properties you did not help me buy?
Yes, and most of them. The buy box program is something we offer owners, not a condition of being one.
Start with a number
Send us an address and we will tell you what it rents for today, what it would rent for after specific work, and whether you should rent it or sell it. Free, no obligation, usually back within two business days.
Request a rental analysis, call 937-999-3890, or email hello@daytonproper.com. 729 Salem Ave, Dayton, OH 45406.
Have a deal in mind? Let’s analyze it now with the Proper Deal CalculatorCap rate, cash on cash and monthly cash flow in about thirty seconds. Free, nothing to sign up for.Analyze a deal ▾Close ▴
Same formulas as the Ingram Rental Calculator app, so the numbers agree: cap rate is NOI over purchase price, and cash on cash is NOI less debt service over total capital required. Management is billed at 10% of rent or $75 a month, whichever is greater — our full fee schedule is here.
Estimates for comparing deals, not for underwriting one. Closing costs and long-term capital reserves are not modeled. For a real number on a real address, ask us for a rental analysis.
Running numbers on the go? Get the Ingram Rental Calculator for iPhone or Android.
Get a free rental analysis
Send us the address and we will tell you what it rents for today, what it would rent for after specific work, and whether you should rent it or sell it. No cost, no obligation, usually back within two business days.
Rather talk? Call 937-999-3890 or email hello@daytonproper.com. Our office is at 729 Salem Ave, Dayton, OH 45406.