One way to use Local Lead Finder. Local Lead Finder is a $10 Google Sheets template I built that turns any Google Maps search into a lead list: every business, with phone, website, rating and reviews. This post is one use case for it: building a full list of property management companies in one city. I ran it for real with the template. Other ways to use it are listed at the end, or see all 18 lead generation ideas.
Two kinds of people search for property management companies in Minneapolis: landlords and HOA boards looking for someone to run their buildings, and vendors (plowers, lawn crews, cleaners, haulers) who want to sell to the people who do. Page 1 gives both of them a handful of picks. There’s a Yelp “best 10”, an Apartments.com directory, a Reddit thread of renters asking which managers they trust, and the rest is company websites, each one calling itself the leading property manager in town. None of it shows you the whole field, how big each company is, or how many there are in your suburb.
So this page is the whole list. I ran it with Local Lead Finder, a $10 Google Sheet I built that pulls every business on Google Maps into a spreadsheet, and it found 255 property management companies around Minneapolis, each with its real Google rating and review count. You’ll leave with the most-reviewed companies, the 8 HOA and condo managers, the count in each suburb, an honest look at why the ratings run so low, and how to build the same list for your own city.
TL;DR
- One search across 87 Minneapolis areas found 255 property management companies, and half of them have 25 reviews or fewer.
- Ratings run harsh: 85 are rated under 3.5 and 81 at 4.5 or higher, mostly because tenants write the reviews.
- Don’t pick or skip a manager on the star rating alone; read who wrote the reviews and what they’re about.
Who this is for
- Landlord or rental property owner: you get every property manager around Minneapolis in one place, with how many reviews each one has.
- HOA or condo board member: you get the 8 HOA, condo and community managers my search found, from the big ones to the very small.
- Real estate investor buying in the suburbs: you can see how many property managers work in St Louis Park, Edina, Golden Valley and Hopkins.
- Snow removal or landscaping contractor: property managers sign the contracts, and this is all 255 of them in one sheet.
- Commercial cleaner or junk removal business: you get a list of the companies that hire for turnovers, cleanouts and common areas, sorted by size.
Before you start
- A Google Places API (New) key
- Local Lead Finder set up in your Google Drive
- Local Lead Finder itself
- Your region, like Minneapolis, Minnesota
- About an hour to read through the list
Don’t have a Places API key yet? How to get one free. Haven’t set up the sheet? Setup takes 5 minutes.
What’s in the list
255 property management companies came back from one search, “property management company”, across 87 areas around Minneapolis. I added a tab with a few formulas to count what’s in it.
- Median 25 reviews. Most property managers in Minneapolis are small. 160 have fewer than 50 reviews.
- 43 have no website listed on Google.
- 35 are rental, apartment or housing managers by name, and 4 are commercial or office managers.
- 106 are outside Minneapolis and St Paul.
The most-reviewed property management companies
Sorted by number of Google reviews, these are the 20 biggest on the list:
This is a ranking by review count, not by quality. More reviews mostly means more units and more tenants, and more tenants means more people with a reason to write one. Even in the top 20, ratings run from 3.0 to 4.9.
HOA and condo management companies in Minneapolis
If you’re on a townhome or condo board, you want an HOA manager, not a rental company. I matched names for HOA, association, community management and condo, and found 8:
Associa Minnesota (970 reviews) and Gassen HOA Management (541) are the two big ones. HOALiving Minnesota has 74. The rest have 14 reviews or fewer, which usually means a small shop where you’d be talking to the owner.
This is a name match, so it’s not every HOA manager around Minneapolis. Some companies manage associations without saying so in their name. Read the full list for names you recognize.
Property managers by suburb
120 of the 255 are in Minneapolis and 29 in St Paul. The other 106 are spread across the suburbs:
St Louis Park (14), Edina (12), Golden Valley (9) and Hopkins (8) sit right next to each other on the west side, so that’s 43 property managers in four neighboring suburbs. Fridley has 6 and Roseville 5. If you own a rental in one of those suburbs, there’s probably a manager close by.
St Cloud shows up with 3. It’s its own city, not a Minneapolis suburb, so check the town in each address before you call.
Property management ratings run harsh
Here’s the number that surprised me: 85 property managers are rated under 3.5, and 81 are rated 4.5 or higher. There are more low ratings than high ones.
I think it’s about who writes the reviews. The landlord or HOA board pays the property manager, but the tenants and residents deal with them every day: rent, repairs, deposits, move-outs. When something goes wrong, a tenant leaves a review. When everything’s fine, nobody does. So a property manager’s Google rating mostly tells you how its tenants feel, and an unhappy tenant can sometimes mean a manager who’s strict on the owner’s behalf.
That’s why I’m not calling anyone on this list the best or the worst. A low rating isn’t the whole story, and neither is a high one. If you’re a landlord choosing a manager, read the reviews themselves. Look at whether they’re from tenants or owners, how recent they are, and whether the company replies.
How I built the list
Region: Minneapolis, Minnesota. Find Areas filled the AREAS tab with the city, its suburbs and its neighborhoods: Arden Hills, Brooklyn Center, Edina, Fridley, Golden Valley, Hopkins and more.
Then I ran Search in All AREAS for “property management company”. It searched the first 87 areas and came back with 255 companies, each with a name, phone number, address, rating, number of reviews, Google Maps link and website.
One thing I got wrong: Find Areas keeps working in the background after it writes the first batch. I started searching at 87 areas, and a few minutes later the tab had 150. So this is most of the metro, not all of it. If you do this, wait for Find Areas to finish first.
To pull out the HOA and condo managers, I used one formula:
=QUERY('property management company (AREAS)'!A1:J256,"select A, D, E where A matches '(?i).*(hoa|associa minnesota|association|community management|condo).*' order by E desc",1)
It keeps rows whose name matches HOA, association, community management or condo, shows the name, rating and review count, and sorts by reviews.
How vendors use this list
If you sell to property managers, this is your prospect list. I’ve used the same 255 for a few trades:
- How to Get Snow Removal Contracts in Minneapolis: plowing and salting, with 153 shopping centers added.
- How to Get Landscaping Contracts: mowing and cleanups, starting with the HOA managers and the west suburbs.
- How to Get Commercial Cleaning Contracts: janitorial work for property managers and plazas.
- How to Get Junk Removal Jobs: move-out cleanouts, where the big rental managers are the best leads.
The smaller companies (160 have under 50 reviews) are where the owner often picks up the phone. The big ones like RENOSY, Housing Hub and KRC Apartments mostly manage rentals and probably already have vendors. Mark everyone you contact Outreached so they stay green in every future search.
Step by step
- Get a Places API key and set up Local Lead Finder.
- Put your city in SETTINGS > Region and run Find Areas. Wait for it to finish.
- Untick any areas you don’t want.
- Run Search in All AREAS for “property management company”.
- Sort by reviews to see the biggest companies, and pull out the HOA and condo managers by name.
- Count by town to see how many managers are in each suburb, and drop any towns outside your area.
- If you’re choosing a manager, read the reviews themselves, not just the rating.
- If you’re selling to them, message or call down the list and mark each one Outreached.
Common pitfalls
- Searching before Find Areas finishes: it keeps working in the background. Mine grew from 87 areas to 150 after I’d started searching, so wait for it to finish.
- Reading the star rating as the whole story: 85 of 255 are under 3.5, mostly because tenants write the reviews. Read who wrote them and what they’re about.
- Treating review count as a quality ranking: more reviews mostly means more units and more tenants. Even the 20 most-reviewed run from 3.0 to 4.9.
- Matching HOA managers by name only: my name match found 8, but some companies manage associations without saying so in their name. Read the list for names you recognize.
- Trusting every town in the results: St Cloud showed up with 3 property managers. Check the town in each address and drop anything outside your area.
- Assuming no website means no business: 43 have no website listed on Google. That’s what Google shows, not proof they don’t have one, so call before you cross them off.
- Not watching API spend: each area is one Places API request per results page, so 87 areas was 87 requests.
Learn the Google Sheets formulas in this post
- How To Sort A Filter: sorting a list so the most-reviewed property managers sit at the top.
- 3 Ways to Count in Google Sheets: the counting behind the summary tab, like 85 rated under 3.5 and 43 with no website.
- Use Min and Max for More Average Averages: a look past the plain average, like the median of 25 reviews in this list.
- 200 REGEXMATCH Examples in Google Sheets: the kind of pattern the QUERY “matches” uses to pull out HOA, condo and community managers.
Better Sheets has hundreds more tutorials like these. If you want to get better at Google Sheets, join Better Sheets.
Other ways to use Local Lead Finder
- How to Get Snow Removal Contracts in Minneapolis: for snow plow and salting contractors going after commercial lots.
- How to Get Landscaping Contracts: 255 Minneapolis property managers: for lawn care and landscaping companies after commercial work.
- How to Get Junk Removal Jobs: Minneapolis rental managers: for junk haulers who want move-out cleanouts every month.
- Local Lead Generation for Web Designers: 225 dentist leads: for web designers pitching great businesses nobody can find.
All 18, grouped by who they’re for: Lead generation ideas: 18 local businesses to sell to.
FAQ
How many property management companies are in Minneapolis?
My search found 255 on Google Maps across 87 areas around Minneapolis: 120 in Minneapolis, 29 in St Paul and 106 in the suburbs. Find Areas later grew to 150 areas, so the full metro has more.
What are the biggest property management companies in Minneapolis?
By Google review count, the top six are RENOSY by Renters Warehouse (1,718), Housing Hub (1,522), KRC Apartments (1,104), Associa Minnesota (970), Mauzy Properties (874) and Guardian Property Management (751). That’s size on Google, not a quality ranking.
Are there HOA management companies in Minneapolis?
Yes. My name match found 8 HOA, condo and community managers, led by Associa Minnesota (970 reviews), Gassen HOA Management (541) and HOALiving Minnesota (74). Some HOA managers don’t say so in their name, so there are likely more in the full list.
Why do property management companies have such low Google ratings?
Mostly because tenants write the reviews, and people review when something goes wrong. Around Minneapolis, 85 property managers are rated under 3.5 and 81 at 4.5 or higher. Read the reviews themselves before you decide.
Can I get the same list for my city?
Yes. Run “property management company” in Local Lead Finder for your region. Each row has the name, phone, address, rating, review count, Google Maps link and website.
How much does a search cost?
Each area is one Google Places request per results page, so 87 areas was 87 requests. You use your own Places API (New) key, and Google gives up to 1,000 searches a month free. The sheet shows the most a search could cost before it runs.
Is this a scraper?
No. It uses Google’s official Places API with your own key. The first run asks you to authorize the script in Google, and setup takes about 5 minutes.
Get the sheet
Local Lead Finder is $10, and free for Better Sheets lifetime members.
