Property management’s employment challenge goes beyond filling vacancies

Property management operators have two workforce questions to answer: Who will fill the next opening, and what will make that person stay?

The first is visible in federal employment projections. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects about 36,900 openings annually for property, real estate and community association managers from 2025 through 2035. Many will replace workers who change occupations or leave the labor force, rather than fill newly created positions.

The second is harder to resolve. Industry research points to rising compensation alongside substantial onsite turnover, with employers identifying both pay and limited career progression as reasons employees leave. Those findings do not explain every departure, but they suggest that recruiting alone is too narrow a workforce strategy.

For operators, the useful question is not simply whether a position can attract applicants. It is whether the compensation, responsibilities and opportunities attached to that position make it worth staying in.

Continued demand does not mean rapid job growth

The BLS occupational outlook projects employment of property, real estate and community association managers to grow 4% between 2025 and 2035, adding approximately 17,100 jobs over the decade. That is a much smaller number than the cumulative openings employers will need to fill.

The difference is replacement demand. An occupation can grow at a moderate pace while still requiring substantial recruiting because people retire, move into other occupations or otherwise leave the workforce.

These figures also have boundaries. They cover a management occupation spanning residential, commercial and industrial properties, as well as community associations. They do not count every leasing consultant, maintenance technician, accountant or administrative employee working in property management.

BLS estimates that the occupation held 460,400 jobs in 2025, including self-employed managers. Its median annual wage was $69,990 in May 2025, although the wage estimate excludes self-employed workers. That national median is a reference point, not a compensation target for every market or assignment.

Operators should therefore resist treating a single employment or salary figure as a complete picture of their labor market. A manager’s title alone does not describe the property, portfolio, schedule or responsibilities attached to the job.

Rising pay and onsite turnover coexist

Compensation remains central to the employment discussion.

In its April 2026 article, “Why Employee Retention Challenges Go Deeper Than Wages,” the National Apartment Association summarized findings from the 2025 RCLCO National Real Estate Compensation and Benefits Survey. Base salaries across the surveyed real estate sector increased 4.7% from 2024 to 2025. Total turnover was 29.2% for onsite property-level employees, compared with 14.2% for corporate and non-onsite real estate functions.

Those are broader real estate survey findings, not a nationwide turnover rate specifically for multifamily property management. They also do not establish whether particular raises succeeded or failed to retain individual employees. What they show is that pay growth and substantial onsite turnover can exist at the same time.

NAA’s summary identifies compensation as the most commonly reported reason for voluntary resignation, at 27%, followed by lack of career mobility and progression at 24%. These are employer-reported reasons, not direct accounts from every departing employee.

The implication is not that operators can replace competitive pay with training, recognition or promises of advancement. It is that compensation and career progression address different parts of the employment offer. Both deserve scrutiny.

The working day belongs in the staffing discussion

A property management job is defined by more than its salary and title.

BLS lists financial reporting, contractor coordination, inspections, resident complaints and compliance among managers’ responsibilities. It also notes that work can include off-duty emergencies and evening meetings.

That makes workload a practical subject for recruitment and retention reviews. Before replacing an employee, an operator should be able to describe what the next hire will inherit: unresolved work, coverage requirements, available support and the authority to make decisions.

NAA’s Performance Ecosystem research provides one perspective on how onsite time is allocated. According to NAA’s summary, survey respondents devoted an average of 42% of their week to routine operational and administrative work, 24% to reactive work and 17% to stakeholder engagement. These are survey findings, not a universal time allocation for every property team.

Nor do the figures establish that administrative work is unnecessary. They offer a starting point for asking more specific questions:

• Which tasks require an onsite employee’s judgment?
• Where are employees entering or checking the same information more than once?
• Who handles exceptions when a routine process breaks down?
• Which responsibilities lack clear ownership?
• Does the staffing plan leave room for planned work as well as urgent requests?

A vacancy is an opportunity to examine those questions before recreating the same position.

Maintenance needs its own workforce plan

A discussion centered only on managers and leasing teams misses another important part of apartment operations.

NAA’s Q2 2026 Apartment Labor Market Dynamics Report summary describes continued hiring expansion in property management, leasing and maintenance. It also reports rising advertised salaries, particularly in maintenance occupations. The public summary does not quantify those increases, and advertised salaries should not be confused with actual employee earnings.

For operators, the practical response is to make the maintenance employment offer specific.

Candidates should understand the on-call rotation, property coverage and scope of responsibility. New employees should know what training and supervision are available. Experienced technicians should be able to see what qualifies them for a supervisory role.

Those are recommendations for job design, not outcomes established by the cited research. They make the assignment clearer and give employers a more concrete basis for reviewing whether recruiting promises match the job.

Technology should be evaluated against work removed

Automation complicates workforce planning, but it does not support a simple prediction of disappearing jobs.

BLS says automating tasks such as posting vacancies and assigning maintenance requests may slow employment growth in the management occupation. It nevertheless projects employment to increase over the decade.

For an individual operator, the more useful question is what a system actually changes.

Routing a maintenance request is not the same as diagnosing the problem. Responding to an initial leasing inquiry is not the same as resolving an unusual application issue. A process can become faster at its first step while still requiring substantial employee attention later.

Before adjusting staffing assumptions, operators should document which tasks a tool removes, which it shifts and which exceptions remain with employees. Software adoption alone is not evidence that a team has more capacity.

Make retention part of the operating review

The available evidence supports treating retention as an operating issue as well as an HR responsibility. Federal projections show substantial replacement needs, while the industry survey findings highlight differences between onsite and corporate turnover and identify compensation and advancement as reported reasons for leaving.

An operator’s review can start with five questions:

1. Where are departures concentrated? Examine roles and properties separately rather than relying only on a companywide average.
2. Does compensation reflect the assignment? Evaluate schedule, coverage, skills and responsibility alongside the job title.
3. Is advancement concrete? Define the experience, training and performance required for the next role.
4. What will the replacement inherit? Review the backlog, support structure and division of work before reposting the position.
5. Has technology reduced the workload? Look for tasks eliminated and time recovered, not simply systems installed.

Hiring will remain necessary. But the next vacancy should prompt more than a search for another candidate. It should also prompt a review of the job that person is being asked to take.