Proper, a national acquisitions and property management platform dedicated to consolidating property managers, has scaled its portfolio to nearly 20,000 units across 15 states in just two years.
The firm, founded by industry veterans Brian Duggan and Alex Samoylovich and backed by private equity firm TriSpan, formally launched in January 2024 with the strategy of building a national platform that could pair local operating excellence with centralized infrastructure, streamlined processes, and advanced technology.
The platform has quickly expanded. By the start of this year, it had brought five companies under its umbrella—Novo Properties, FLATS, Guardian, CommonPlace, and Drexel—and added Alexander Properties Group in mid-February.
“From a scale standpoint, our goal is to build the nation’s leading, most efficient, and most trusted property management platform—one that uses scale to improve performance, strengthen local operators, and create lasting value for owners, residents, and employees,” says Duggan, CEO of the firm. “The near-term benchmark is to become a top 50 U.S. manager in the next year.”
According to executive chairman Samoylovich, property management is at an inflection point.
“Regulatory complexity is increasing, renter expectations are rising, and the technology required to operate efficiently is becoming more sophisticated and expensive to implement. This is a period of structural change in which scale and infrastructure matter as much as local expertise,” he says. “At the same time, the broader market is highly fragmented, which creates an opening for a better model. Centralization and automation are giving multifamily managers true economies of scale for the first time, while private equity-backed rollups have become a major theme across services industries.”
Samoylovich notes many small to midsized independent firms don’t have the scale to absorb the costs of centralized systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and new operating systems.
“Consolidation, in this model, is not about stripping out what makes local firms special; it is about giving them access to capabilities that would otherwise be out of reach,” he says.
Proper’s platform includes centralized staffing and back-office support, standardized recruiting and onboarding systems, process improvements to reduce administrative friction, shared operational sources, and a technology ecosystem. It uses AI-first software, digital tools, and Livly-powered operating infrastructure to help automate repetitive work, support more cost-effective corporate staffing models, and improve the resident experience.
“For operators joining the platform, the benefits go beyond software. Proper’s model is built around preserving local brands, retaining teams, and giving owners flexibility in how involved they remain,” says chief operating officer Khushbu Sikaria. “The appeal is ‘autonomy with scale’: Operators keep the culture and market knowledge that made them successful, while gaining purchasing power, institutional capital, back-office leverage, career mobility for employees, and access to systems they likely could not justify building alone.”
According to Greg Selfridge, CEO of Novo Properties, which manages about 2,000 apartment homes in the Mid-Atlantic, Proper is enabling his midsized company to build a stronger foundation with greater efficiency through its infrastructure and resources.
“Property management is a people-driven business, and Proper combines disciplined processes with thoughtful technology to elevate both the employee and resident experience,” Selfridge shares.
Proper’s operations span coast to coast from California to Florida.
“We are pursuing expansion through aligned operating partners and focusing on long-term cohesion,” Duggan says. “We will continue to expand our geographic reach as more operating companies join our collective.”
For Proper, Duggan adds that short-term success means integrating the recent acquisitions well and providing each operating company with better tools and support.
“It also means showing measurable gains in efficiency, consistency, employee development, resident satisfaction, and owner performance,” he says. “That is the immediate teste of the model.”
In the long term, according to Sikaria, success means building a national property management platform that isn’t just larger, but structurally better.
“Proper’s mission is that the end goal is to become the most trusted and forward-thinking platform in this category, one where local owners and operators can go further together because they are supported by shared infrastructure, innovation, and aligned ownership,” she adds.