Property management answering service
After-hours answering that reaches your on-call tech.
Mae answers your tenant, owner and prospect calls when the office is closed. Real emergencies go to your on-call tech by your rules, with retries and a backup. Everything else is logged for the morning. From $197 a month.
- After hours · 24/7 on request
- Billed by the second
- Works alongside any property software
Tonight's call log
Oak Street Property Management- 2:14 AMMaria Lopez · 555-0142 · 14 Elm St, unit 3B“Water's coming from under the kitchen sink.”Emergency
- 2:15 AMCalling Dave Chen, on-call · no answer
- 2:20 AMRetrying Dave Chen · no answer
- 2:21 AMCalling Priya Shah, backup · answered, connected
- 2:24 AMSummary and recording emailed to you
Example call. Names and numbers are invented.
Short answer
What is a property management answering service?
It answers your office line when nobody can: nights, weekends and holidays. A good one sorts emergencies from everything else, reaches the right on-call person fast, and keeps a record of every call. MaeDay does this with Mae, an AI voice agent set up with your own emergency list and on-call ladder, for $197 a month.
Last updated
What happens to your after-hours calls now?
For most managers it is one of three things, and none of them can tell a flood from a dripping tap.
Voicemail nobody hears until morning
The tenant with water on the floor leaves a message at 2am. You hear it at 8am, along with the noise complaint and the question about parking.
A message service that only relays
Someone answers and passes the call on, but every call gets the same treatment. You get woken for a slow drain, or the burst pipe waits in an inbox.
Your own phone on the nightstand
You or one of your techs carries the line every night. Every ring could be an emergency, so every ring gets answered, and nobody sleeps well.
What does a missed emergency cost?
Rarely just the repair. The cost grows with every hour the call sits, and some of it is set by law.
Water reaches the unit below
A leak caught at 2am is one unit and a plumber. Found at 8am, it can be two units, a ceiling, and a second tenant who now has a complaint too.
The repair clock starts when the tenant tells you
Habitability timelines run from notice, not from when you play the voicemail. A timestamped call log is your evidence of when you heard and what you did.
Source: Contact Center USA, property management answering service guide, checked 14 November 2026
Repair timelines are set by state law
Texas law presumes seven days is a reasonable time to repair after notice. In California it is usually 30 days, but as little as one to two days for a broken furnace in very cold weather.
Sources: Texas Attorney General, Renters rights, checked 14 November 2026; California Department of Real Estate, Dealing with repairs, checked 14 November 2026
Techs woken for things that could wait
If every call is urgent, none is. A tech called out for a squeaky door at midnight is slower to pick up the next time, and the next time may be the flood.
General information, not legal advice. Check the rules for your state and city.
What changes when the right person gets the call?
The emergency reaches your on-call tech, and the tenant gets an answer. The rest follows from that.
Emergencies reach someone fast
Mae calls your on-call tech while the tenant is still on the line, then the retry, then the backup.
Routine calls wait for the morning
The slow drain and the parking question are logged with the details, and nobody is woken for them.
Every attempt is on record
Who called, who Mae tried, who answered and when, ready for the owner who asks what happened.
You sleep
Your phone rings only for the calls on your own emergency list, and only if your techs do not answer first.
What happens when a tenant calls at 2am?
Mae answers in your name
First ring, your company name, a short recording notice. No hold music, no voicemail.
Checks your emergency list
Property, unit and problem, checked against the rules you set for that property. Flood yes, dripping tap no.
Reaches your on-call tech
Transfers the call with a spoken summary. No answer? She retries, then calls your backup, in the order you choose.
You get the log
Every call summarized by email with the recording and a timestamp for each attempt. Ready for the owner report.
Which calls does Mae handle?
Most after-hours calls are not emergencies. Mae sorts them so you only get woken for the ones that are.
- Emergency
Maintenance emergencies
Flooding, no heat, no water, sewage backup, electrical hazards. Your list decides. These go to your on-call ladder straight away.
- Logged for morning
Routine repairs
Slow drains, a broken blind, a noisy fan. Mae takes the details and tells the tenant when to expect a reply.
- Your policy
Lockouts
Call your on-call tech, give a locksmith list, or ask the tenant to call in the morning. You choose once at setup and Mae follows it every time.
- Leasing
Prospects and leasing questions
Availability, rent, pets, how to apply, from your approved script. Every caller gets the same answers, and their details reach your leasing team.
- Owners
Owner calls
Recognized and routed to whoever handles owner relations, as a message or a transfer.
- Logged
Vendors and everyone else
Vendors, neighbors, wrong numbers. Logged and summarized. Spam and wrong numbers are not billed.
What won't Mae do?
Better you hear it now than at 2am.
- She won't call 911. Anyone reporting fire, a gas smell or an injury is told to hang up and call 911 first.
- She won't judge safety beyond your rules. If it's not on your emergency list, it waits for the morning.
- She can't fix it if nobody answers. If your whole ladder is asleep, she logs every attempt and alerts you.
- She won't screen applicants. No talk of neighborhoods or who lives there. Accommodation requests go to your team.
- Texts come a little later. Text alerts start once US carrier registration is approved, usually 1 to 3 weeks. Calls and email work from day one.
- She's not a person. Mae is an AI voice agent and says so if asked.
What does it cost?
Billed by the second, not rounded up. Spam and wrong numbers are not counted. Setup is $297 on monthly plans and free on annual plans.
Starter
$197 / month
500 minutes, about 150 calls. Then $0.35 a minute.
Growth
$397 / month
1,250 minutes, about 400 calls. Then $0.30 a minute.
Portfolio
$797 / month
2,500 minutes, about 800 calls. Then $0.25 a minute.
Call counts assume about 3 minutes a call. See full pricing and how it compares
When is something else the better choice?
We'd rather you pick the right service than the wrong one with us.
You want a live person on every call
A human answering service such as Specialty Answering Service is the better fit, and some offer Spanish-speaking staff today.
You already run Property Meld or Buildium
Their own after-hours add-ons create work orders inside the software. If maintenance is all you need answered, start there.
You get a handful of calls a month
A general AI receptionist with a free tier may cost less. See how we compare with Smith.ai.
Who is MaeDay for?
Questions property managers ask
What counts as an emergency?
What if my on-call tech doesn't answer?
Does it work with AppFolio, Buildium or Yardi?
Are calls recorded?
Can it answer during the day too?
How long does setup take?
Send this to the owner or your partner
Not your call alone? Here is the short version, ready to email or paste into a message.
Subject: An idea for our after-hours calls
When it's a mayday, Mae answers.
On a 20-minute setup call we go through your properties, your emergency list and who is on call. You leave with a plan and a price.