Creating & Editing Properties

This article walks you through adding a property to REDA — whether that's a single unit or a whole building of them — and editing one afterwards. You'll learn the order to create records in (parents before children), which field groups matter for your business line, how to sail past the handful of rules that block a save, and which fields REDA fills in for you. It also explains the properties that appear on their own, created automatically when an acquisition or management deal goes live. No prior REDA experience is assumed.

Before you start

A property leans on master data that should already exist. Set these up first (an administrator usually does):

Create order: building or community, then units

Create the top-level building or community first, then its units. Link each unit to its container with Parent Property; that parent must exist before you save the unit. A property whose type has Is Building/Community selected cannot itself have a parent, so do not nest a container building under a community.

Containers (any property whose type has Is Building/Community ticked) follow two rules you'll meet at save time: they cannot have a parent of their own, and they must carry a Property Code. We'll see both in the walkthrough below.

Walkthrough: creating a building

Walkthrough: creating a unit

The unit is where the leasing and ownership detail lives. Work through the field groups — you don't have to fill everything now; some can wait until you prepare the property for leasing.

Fields REDA fills in for you

Some fields on the saved property are written by REDA, not by you. Don't try to edit them — the next save overwrites your change:

Properties created automatically from deals

Not every property is created by hand. When an acquisition or a property management deal becomes active with no property linked to it, REDA creates the property record for you and links it back on the deal. So if you find a property nobody remembers creating, check whether it came from a deal — that's usually the answer.

Creating a property against an Acquisition Opportunity goes one step further: REDA also opens a Lending Opportunity at the Prospecting stage for the buying account, carrying over the close date and the property's region, neighbourhood and type — so the financing conversation is ready to go.

Editing an existing property

Editing is mostly straightforward, with two things to keep in mind. First, ownership edits ripple into the property's ownership history, and a problem there will block the property save itself: "Failed to update Property Ownership Trail. Missing ownership information on Property." — usually because you cleared the owner or the start date while an open ownership entry exists. Restore both fields to save. Second, the system-maintained fields above can't be edited — change the source field (the Region, the Parent Property, the Sale Status) instead.

Worked example: Meridian Court and its units

Meridian Properties is adding a building. First they create Meridian Court — a container-type property (its Property Type has Is Building/Community ticked). They save without a code and REDA blocks it: "Property Code is required for Buildings/Communities." They add the code MC and it saves. They leave the parent blank, since a building sits at the top of its tree.

Then they create the unit Meridian Court #101 — a unit-level Property Type (2 BR), Parent Property Meridian Court, Region Harbour District. They fill the physical facts (beds, baths, area) for the unit, and record ownership too: Owner Account Continental Holdings, Ownership Start Date 1 Jan 2026. On save, REDA stamps the unit's Region Code and Parent Property Code, and creates the first ownership-trail entry for Continental Holdings automatically.

The saved Meridian Court #101 record on the Details tab — Parent Property (Meridian Court), Region (Harbour District), Owner Account (Continental Holdings) and Ownership Start Date, the linkages REDA sets when the unit is created under its building.

The auto-created first ownership entry: a Property Ownership Trail record naming Continental Holdings as the owner of Meridian Court #101, with an ownership start date and no end date — the open, current era.

Reference: save-blocking rules you may hit

Where to go next

1. Property Types — set up the asset kinds and the Is Building/Community flag before you create properties.
2. Property Statuses Explained — how a property's status behaves once deals attach.
3. Making a Property Available for Leasing — finish the leasing setup on your unit.
4. Understanding Properties — the record and its hierarchy, from the top.

Frequently asked questions