Property Managers: Is Your Reserve Cash Earning Interest?

Property managers and homeowner’s associations often need to keep significant cash on hand for a variety of reasons – like holding tenant security deposits, rent that is due to owners, or for their own operational reserves. No matter the reason for holding the funds, they must be safe and accessible.

Because of these special needs, property managers often have limited options when choosing cash investments, and they too often settle for an account that provides minimal interest. If your firm employs this outdated investment strategy, you could be forgoing significant income.

Why is it important for your reserve cash to earn interest?

Optimizing the return on reserve cash is especially important for property managers due to the size of their cash holdings. This additional income helps your organization keep pace with inflation and can support profitability.

Reduce The Impact of Inflation

If your cash isn’t growing, it is actually shrinking due to inflation. On the other hand, if you invest your cash wisely, you can earn a competitive return that maintains its purchasing power.

Grow Profits

If you can secure a higher return than you were earning in the past, the additional interest income adds directly to profitability.

Common Investment Options Don’t Work for Property Management Reserve Cash

While the benefits of earning interest in your reserve cash are clear, achieving that goal is more challenging. It requires an investment vehicle that has it all – safety, liquidity, and returns. However, most common investment options fail to deliver all three.

Stocks Don’t Offer the Safety Property Managers Need

The right stocks in a good economy can provide exceptional returns. However, that income is far from guaranteed. In fact, you risk losing not just interest but your entire balance if the investment fails. This lack of safety generally makes stocks a poor choice for reserve cash, and a decidedly inappropriate choice for security deposits and owner’s funds.

Treasuries Provide Limited Liquidity

Bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury are generally considered safe investments and can generate competitive returns. However, they are issued for specific terms that limit access to funds until the investment matures.

If you need to access the money you’ve invested in a bond prior to maturity, you must take a risk and sell it at the current market value. Depending on market conditions, you could make a profit during this sale – or you could lose a substantial amount of your investment.

Due to limited liquidity and risk of principal loss during an emergency withdrawal, long-term Treasuries are not generally a suitable investment for reserves, tenant funds, or owner’s cash. However, some companies use short-term Treasuries as a viable investment option for some types of their internal reserves.

Most Highly Liquid Bank Accounts Offer Subpar Returns

Deposit accounts offered by FDIC member banks or NCUA member credit unions solve the issues of safety and liquidity. These accounts are protected by government insurance – up to $250,000 per ownership category at each insured financial institution. Some of them are also specifically designed for accessibility. However, these accounts fall short on interest income.

Even with interest rates at their highest level since 2001, the average checking account pays just 0.07% annual interest and the average money market account pays just 0.59% as of August 2025. These miniscule returns are far below the inflation rate and do not provide the growth property managers need to keep pace with rising prices.

You may be wondering, if stocks, bonds, and traditional deposit accounts are generally considered poor choices for reserve cash, what other options exist? There are a multitude of investment possibilities, but one stands out above the rest for businesses with large cash reserves – deposit management from ADM.

Deposit Management Services from ADM Provide Returns Plus Safety and Liquidity

With our deposit management services, property managers don’t have to sacrifice interest income to achieve their safety and liquidity needs. That’s because we utilize patent-pending technology to spread cash across our nationwide network of financial institutions. The result is access to unparalleled safety, simple access to cash, and nationally competitive interest rates.

Earn Rates 7x Higher Than the National Average

The banks in our network compete for deposits – helping you earn much higher rates of return than the national average. In fact, our accounts have generated 7x more interest income than the national average for money market accounts since 2017.

Over time, the additional income from an ADM account can greatly increase the value of your reserve fund. For example, a customer with a $1,000,000 starting value would have earned about $12,500 in interest from 2017 through 2023 in a money market account at the national average interest rate. On the other hand, an ADM account would have generated over $105,000 during the same time frame. That’s $92,500 more income!

The Ultimate Safety for Reserve Cash

In addition to nationally competitive rates of return, our deposit management services provide access to full government insurance – even for funds above the FDIC / NCUA limit. Best of all, we accomplish this with one account and one consolidated monthly statement.

Access To Your Cash When You Need It

We understand that property managers sometimes need access to their cash on short notice. That’s why we designed solutions that provide next-day liquidity as well as options for term investments.

Simple Cash Management

With one consolidated monthly statement, you no longer need to expend resources to reconcile multiple statements and accounts. We also simplify the processes of tracking CD maturities, comparing interest rates, and diversifying funds. Finally, common activities, like setting up new accounts and updating signers, are streamlined with our intuitive portal and supportive staff.

We created our modern cash solutions with simplicity in mind. This emphasis on painless management allowed us to minimize your ongoing cash management responsibilities so you can devote more time to your communities.

Comprehensive Cash Management Services

At ADM, the benefits don’t stop with safety, liquidity and returns. We provide several other valuable services that can save your organization overhead costs while reducing its exposure to risk.

We also offer term investment strategies including CD ladders that help your organization take advantage of long-term interest rates while maintaining needed liquidity. These investment options are ideal for cash that is needed on a set schedule or for a future project.

Further, when you need to engage in a large, lengthy, or complex transaction, escrow services keep your money safe until the terms of the contract are met. These services are vital to reducing risk and ensuring that your transactions occur smoothly.

Earn More, Risk Less® With ADM

With modern cash solutions from American Deposit Management, you don’t have to make sacrifices when investing your cash. Our solutions for property managers offer access to the safety and liquidity you need along with the nationally competitive interest rates you want.

Reach out to a member of our team to learn more about how we can improve your cash management plan and get started today!

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