Help! I'm drowning in keys!

[Geoff Pettis]

Whether managing 5 or 100 properties keys are a big hassle.  Fortunately everything is "smart" these days; thermostats, appliances, and even door locks.  But what about battery life, reliability, compatibility, etc..  What is best for investment properties a non-connected but electronic keypad/deadbolt? or a full fledged "smart" lock connected with wifi, bluetooth or zigbee wireless interface?

Thoughts?  Concerns?

[Nathan Gesner]

I have approximately 400 doors under management and I'm still old-school with keys. I store my keys on a peg board with 2" pegs that allow for hanging 6+ key rings on each peg.

Peg board https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

Key pegs https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

Key tags https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

I stagger the pegs into every other spot, which provides plenty of space without keys knocking into each other. This one set of peg board can hold approximately 230 pegs to hang keys on. If you want a picture of my monstrosity, I'm happy to share one. I have four sets of keys for every rental: two go to the tenant and two are kept in the office to sign out to vendors or for emergencies. When I give tenants a key, I remove it from the tag and put the empty tag back on the board so I know how many keys were issued out and the tag doesn't get thrown away by the tenant.

You can also look at landlordlocks.com (schlage sells a DIY lock that is similar) but it's another expensive option. You have to pay to replace every doorknob on every house just so you can have a master key system. That's thousands of dollars.

Smart locks? They're great when they work but there's the expense of installation, changing batteries, and other maintenance issues. I use them on my vacation rental, but not on ordinary homes.

You can spend a lot of time, effort, and money trying to get something "smart" but I think the best option is to just organize your keys.