Your building shouldn’t cost you your evenings.
Marcel Properties manages residential rentals across Massachusetts for one flat rate: $149 per unit, per month. No leasing fees. No maintenance markups. No percentage of your rent.
The real cost of self-managing
You didn’t buy a building to become a maintenance dispatcher.
You bought it for the cash flow, the appreciation, the thing you hand your kids. Then the calls started.
The 9pm text. No heat in unit 2. You’re at dinner. You’re now calling plumbers.
The unit that won’t fill. Three weeks vacant is $1,300 gone, and it isn’t coming back.
The paperwork you’re not sure about. Massachusetts security deposit law carries triple damages for getting it wrong. You’ve read the statute twice and you’re still not certain.
The manager who costs more than you thought. Eight percent sounded reasonable. Then came the leasing fee, the renewal fee, and 10% on top of every plumber’s invoice.
Owning rental property is supposed to buy you freedom. For most Massachusetts landlords it buys a second job.
Why we’re built differently
We don’t get paid to place tenants. We get paid to keep them.
Most managers charge 50–100% of a month’s rent every time they place a tenant. So the incentive is quietly upside down. Here’s the difference, the moment it actually matters:
A percentage manager
Fine while the tenant stays. Nothing extra changes hands.
Marcel · flat fee
Same flat fee, tenant staying. Exactly the outcome we want.
A tenant who stays five years is worth more to us than one who leaves every year. Your interests and ours point the same direction — structurally, not because we promise they do.
No percentage of rent.
Raise the rent $200 and you keep all $200. Percentage-based managers automatically take a cut of every increase you earn.
No markup on repairs.
What the plumber bills is what you pay. Managers who add 10–15% to invoices have a quiet incentive to approve more work, not less.
No renewal fee.
Renewals are how we avoid a turn. We’re not going to charge you for the outcome we want.
The process
Three steps. Then you stop thinking about it.
- Step 01
Portfolio Review · free, 30 min
We walk through your units, your leases, and where things currently break down. You’ll leave with a written assessment of your rent positioning and any compliance gaps we spot — whether or not you hire us.
- Step 02
Management Agreement
One document that authorizes Marcel to act as your managing agent and defines exactly what we handle. Plain language, no auto-renewal traps, cancel with 30 days’ notice. Onboarding is free.
- Step 03
You Get Your Evenings Back
Rent collected and deposited. Maintenance handled. Tenants managed. A monthly statement in your inbox and an owner portal you can check any time you want — which will be less often than you think.
Everything. That’s the entire pricing model.
$149 / unit / monthVacancy marketing
Listings written, photographed, and posted the day a notice comes in — not the week after.
More visibility means more leads. Learn more Screening & ComplianceTenant screening
Credit, income, and rental history verified against a consistent standard, documented, and defensible.
Consistent standards protect you. Learn more Legal & ComplianceLease coordination
Massachusetts-compliant leases drafted, signed, and stored. Renewals handled before they lapse.
Nothing expires without your knowledge. Learn more Payments & CollectionsRent collection
Collected, deposited, and reconciled. Late notices go out on schedule so you never have to make the call.
Reliable cash flow, every month. Learn more Maintenance & RepairsMaintenance coordination
Vetted local trades, dispatched and followed up. You approve anything above a threshold you set.
Vetted vendors, spending you control. Learn more Reporting & AccountingFinancial reporting
A monthly statement that reconciles, plus year-end documents your accountant can use without a phone call.
Books that reconcile, every time. Learn more Legal & ComplianceCompliance review
Deposits, notices, and required disclosures checked against current Massachusetts law — before they become a problem.
Problems caught before they cost you. Learn more Market AnalysisRent positioning analysis
Your rents measured against live comparables, so you’re not leaving money on the table or pricing yourself vacant.
Priced right, not left on the table. Learn more Transparency & AccessOwner portal
Statements, documents, and work orders in one place, available whenever you want to look.
Everything, whenever you want to look. Learn moreWhat this actually costs
Run your real numbers, not the headline rate.
The 8% sounds smaller than a per-unit fee. Over twelve months of invoices, it usually isn’t — and the more units you run, the lower our rate goes. Set your own numbers and see.
Assumes 8% management, one month’s rent per placement, 10% markup on ~$1,500 of annual repairs per unit, and a $200 renewal fee — the standard percentage-manager stack. Marcel bills per unit per month with volume breaks: $149 (1–30), $129 (31–60), $100 (61–90), $79 (91+), all-inclusive. Estimate, not a quote.
What owners say
Built on trust.
From owners
“[Testimonial placeholder — owner quote on responsiveness and peace of mind.]”
“[Testimonial placeholder — owner quote on the flat fee and no surprises.]”
“[Testimonial placeholder — owner quote on compliance and trust.]”
From residents
“[Testimonial placeholder — resident quote on repairs handled quickly.]”
“[Testimonial placeholder — resident quote on being treated fairly.]”
Joshua Mendez,
environmental portrait]
He answers his own phone.
Who you’re actually hiring
When you call Marcel, you get Joshua.
I spent seven years working alongside Massachusetts landlords before I started this company — leasing apartments, coordinating repairs, sitting in on the conversations that go wrong. The same problems came up every time. Pricing nobody could explain. Managers who went quiet for weeks. Fee structures that quietly rewarded turnover.
I also know what housing means from the other side. I experienced homelessness earlier in my life. A unit isn’t a line on a rent roll to me. It’s somebody’s address, their kids’ school district, the place they feel safe. That shapes how we screen, how we communicate, and how we handle people when something goes wrong.
Marcel is small on purpose. Thirty-one units, one flat rate, and an owner who answers his own phone.
Joshua Mendez — Founder, Marcel Properties
Read the full story →Free for every MA landlord
The Massachusetts Landlord Compliance Checklist
Security deposits under G.L. c. 186 §15B. Required notices. Lease clauses that are unenforceable in Massachusetts. Move-in documentation that holds up when a deposit is disputed.
Nine pages. No cost. No obligation to hire anyone.
We publish it because informed landlords make better decisions, and because most of the expensive mistakes we clean up were avoidable with a checklist.
The checklist is on its way to .
Service area
Merrimack Valley and the Greater Boston area.
Our core service area, where we can be at a property the same day. Also serving Andover, North Andover, Dracut, and Salem NH. Elsewhere in Massachusetts, ask us.
Find out what your portfolio should be earning.
A 30-minute portfolio review. We’ll look at your rents against current comps, flag compliance gaps, and tell you what we’d charge. If self-managing is the right answer for you, we’ll say so.
Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm