property management is an awful business. i used to own rentals and got to know various companies; i also knew a guy who ran a small management company. they go through countless employees because everyone hates working there. the turnover is worse than crap jobs like starbucks. in the years i owned rentals, i went through >10 different managers. the guy who had his own business said he just wanted to break even. the only reason he had this company is because he was also a real estate broker who specialized in rentals, and he wanted to be a "one-stop" shop for people looking to invest in rental properties.
Back before Google was a multi-billion dollar company, people thought that search had already been done. Yahoo had a search box on their portal and you could also search through Ask or Excite and few saw the point of starting a new business based on web searches. It seemed insane with big established players already in the field. What skeptics failed to realize, that yes, search had been done, but it had yet to be done right. Apartment searching still sucks. Maybe masonyes has an improved way to do it so that it doesn't suck nearly so much. If you read Paul Graham's essays about y-combinator and what it takes to succeed with a start-up, the idea isn't very important. Ideas are a dime a dozen, can be easily changed, and almost always do change substantially between initial conception and final implementation. What they really look for is the people behind the idea. Someone that's relentlessly resourceful and doesn't get demoralized and quit.
Go visit your city's local business chamber. They will tell you exactly what to do or give you information to other resources. Also, talk to your bank about opening a business account and local resources associated with business. In addition, contact the IRS to get information about taxes related to business. It's that simple and you'll soon have a desk full of books and pamphlets to read. Also, you used the words college town. That implies your not talking about a big city. Instead, your talking about a town that's somewhat dependent upon the University located there. Therefore, check out your competition to see how they are doing it (call them up and pretend you're a student looking for an apartment) because I can name a lot of college towns that has folks already doing what you briefly mentioned unless you have a different angle at doing it. You can easily find out whom your competition is via visiting the local student union and other student resources to see what's being posted on the bulletin boards on campus, student newspaper, dorm halls even if your business model is different from the competition. By the way, most students are deeply involved in social networking (e.g. facebook, myspace, twitter et cetera). Make sure you get your business on those social networks and make it easy for students to come across you sort'uv speak in that particular college town or several college towns in your state. My niece found her apartment like many of her friends via using social networks considering many of these apartment locators have a stronger web presence today in comparison to 10 years ago. Heck, she saids most students in her old dorm had laptops and frequently used the internet. Last of all, hire someone for part-time work that's also a student so that you'll be inside the loop sort'uv speak about what's going on with the University after you've establish your business and can afford to hire help. Mark