Methodology
How facts get into this directory, how we order companies and when a page is allowed to exist.
How to read this site
What we list
We list a company only after reading its own website. Companies seen only on a third-party directory or in a search result are not published. We collect facts (fees, services, service areas, license notes, public business contact details), not descriptions or images.
Sources and dates
Every fact carries a source, the date we captured it and the date we last read it, shown next to the fact. Our rule is to check a source's terms and robots.txt before collecting from it automatically. An unknown fact stays unknown: it shows as “Not published” (we recorded that the company does not state it) or “Not recorded” (we have no record of looking). We never fill a gap with a guess or with a figure from a third-party roundup.
How a fee was checked
Each fee row says how it was checked. “Read from the company's website by our tool” means an automated tool read the value from the company's own page on the date shown and no person has compared it yet. It is not a quote, and fees change, so confirm with the company. “Checked by a person” means a person compared the value with the live page. We do not call a fee “verified” in either case. We do not describe a license as verified unless we checked an official record; none of our sources for that are available yet, so license notes read “stated by company, not verified”.
We use a source for pages that can be indexed only after its terms of service have been reviewed and recorded. Company pages with too little reviewed data are not published.
Fee comparison scope
The fee comparison and fee guides use only fees a company publishes on its own website, labelled “companies we reviewed, not a market average”. They are not a survey. Ranges and plans are shown as published and are never averaged. A rent estimate uses an example rent and is an illustration, not a quote.
A company's fees are included only if its own website also states a Columbus-area service area. Fees from a company with no stated service area are not shown until it states one.
Use the data
The published fee rows are available as CSV and JSON, with the source page and dates for every figure. It lists companies we reviewed, not a market average. Please cite “Central Ohio Property Management Guide fee data, as of 2026-11-14”.
License notes
Ohio has no separate property manager license. A company's license note shows what its own site says or, when we have checked it, what the state record shows. A company-stated license is labelled “stated by company, not verified”.
Corrections
Companies can correct or remove a listing for free on the correction page. A correction is published when there is a public source for it.
Rules and change log
How we order companies
- Relevance to the page: serves this city or property type.
- Data completeness: how many of six fact groups are sourced and current (license, fees, service areas, services, property types, contact).
- Name, A to Z.
Payment, claiming a listing, company size, any business relationship with this site and the amount of a fee are never inputs. A company that does not publish fees is still listed.
How old a fact can be
A fact last read more than 180 days ago is flagged with its age. A fact more than 365 days old is left out of fee comparisons and completeness until we re-check it.
When a page exists
- Company page: indexed by search engines only with at least 3 sourced fact groups and fees from a company's own site or a license checked against the state record. Otherwise it is listed but marked not for indexing.
- City page: indexed with at least 3 indexable companies, at least 1 with published fees we have read.
- Property-type page: at least 3 indexable companies with a sourced fact for that type.
- Fee comparison: at least 5 companies with published fees we have read. Each fee guide: at least 5 companies publishing that fee.
Change log
- : First published rules: ordering, freshness limits, page thresholds and the fee comparison scope described on this page.
- : Fee rows now say how they were checked. Rows from a network-wide pricing page or with unconfirmed plan labels are shown with a note and are not counted toward the thresholds. Facts count toward indexed pages only when the source's terms have been reviewed.