An apartment community manager is the on-site manager of a single rental community — the person an owner or management company puts in charge of leasing, maintenance, budgets, vendor contracts and resident relations at an apartment property.
It is a multifamily title for the job the industry otherwise calls a property manager.
This guide explains the title, the industry where it appears, the team under it and how to get the job.
What is an apartment community manager?
An apartment community manager runs one apartment property — the community — day to day.
One person holds the on-site accountability for filling vacancies, collecting rent, inspecting the property and arranging repairs, paying or delegating bills, and reporting results to the owner.
The title is a multifamily convention: NAA's Education Institute describes the average apartment community and counts a community manager among its onsite staff.
The word points at the real estate, not at an online audience.
Federal statistics do not track community manager as a separate occupation.
The direct-match title file for property, real estate and community association managers (SOC 11-9141) lists Apartment Manager, Building Rental Manager, Community Association Manager, Leasing Property Manager, Property Manager and Real Estate Manager among the titles in the series.
O*NET's sample of reported titles for the same occupation adds Community Manager, Onsite Manager and Resident Manager to that list.
Community managers are counted — and paid — inside that one manager series.
The work is what BLS lists for the occupation: showing units and explaining lease terms, collecting monthly fees, inspecting facilities and arranging repairs, and paying or delegating bills.
Community managers also contract for services, settle complaints, keep rental records, prepare budgets and financial reports, and comply with anti-discrimination laws when they advertise and lease.
Is a community manager the same as a property manager?
In apartments, yes — the two titles describe the same on-site job.
Federal data treats them as one occupation.
The direct-match title file for SOC 11-9141 includes both Property Manager and Apartment Manager, and O*NET lists Community Manager and Property Manager among the reported titles for the same series — one labor market, one pay series.
The difference is where each title gets used.
The occupation's title lists run past apartments: O*NET's reported titles include Commercial Property Manager, and BLS names apartments, condominiums, cooperatives, planned communities and senior housing among the building types management companies operate.
Community manager is the residential term — NAA uses it for the manager of an apartment community with onsite staff.
Keep the title apart from a community association manager, too.
BLS describes community association managers as usually hired by an association's volunteer board of directors to manage common areas and services of condominiums, cooperatives and planned communities.
That is a different employer and a different accountability — a volunteer board of owners rather than a single owner or a management company — even though the federal occupation counts both jobs in the same series.
The abbreviation CAM can also name three different things in this field: NAAEI's Certified Apartment Manager credential, a community association manager working for a board-run association, and common area maintenance charges in commercial leases.
Read the context before you assume which one a posting means.
A social media community manager is a different occupation again: the overlap is the word community, not the work.
For the wider field — commercial buildings, single-family portfolios and third-party management — the property manager career guide covers the role this apartment title sits inside.
Which companies use the community manager title?
You will meet the title where multifamily runs at scale.
NMHC's 2026 ranking of the largest apartment managers puts the top 50 managers at 24% of U.S. apartments overseen, while the top 50 owners hold 11% of the apartment stock (portfolios as of January 1, 2026).
Greystar ranks No. 1 with 1,014,091 units managed, up from 946,742 the year before, including 30,910 student housing units and 27,574 built-to-rent units.
Asset Living ranks No. 2 with 446,427 units, 50,849 of them student housing.
Willow Bridge Property Company (244,457 units), RPM Living (241,479) and AMC (156,223) complete the top five.
Read employer lists like this one with two caveats.
NMHC counts multifamily rental units in properties of five or more units for which the firm handles property management — it excludes condominiums, cooperatives, scattered-site single-family rentals, nursing homes and assisted living, and it measures student housing in units, not beds.
It also counts apartments, not employees or job titles — so the ranking shows where the portfolios sit, not which company prints which title.
Across the occupation, BLS counted 56% of property, real estate and community association managers working in the real estate industry in 2025 and 31% self-employed — the series counts the self-employed alongside payroll employees, so it is wider than the on-site employee role.
Because the titles are one occupation in federal data, expect the same work to be posted as community manager, property manager or apartment manager.
Read the duties in a posting rather than the title alone.
What does the on-site team under a community manager look like?
NAA's Education Institute sketches the staffing picture: the average apartment community includes 254 units and employs at least six onsite staff members, including a community manager, assistant manager, leasing consultants and maintenance technicians.
NAA does not date that average, and it describes a community rather than a staffing formula; our sources give no rule for how many units justify a manager.
The community manager is the manager in that team — the first title in NAA's list.
The other titles have their own rungs on NAAEI's career map: leasing pairs with the Certified Apartment Leasing Professional (CALP), maintenance with CAMT, and the community manager rung carries the CAM credential.
Above the tasks sits the owner relationship: budgets and financial reports, collections, vendor contracts, inspections and the property's compliance with anti-discrimination laws in its marketing and leasing — the duties BLS lists for the occupation.
The schedule follows the property.
BLS notes most property managers work full time and may need to respond to emergencies off duty or attend evening meetings with residents, owners or association boards, and some are required to live onsite.
How do you become a community manager?
No credential carries the community manager name in the sources we checked — the industry credential for this rung is NAAEI's Certified Apartment Manager (CAM).
BLS lists the typical entry-level education for the occupation as a high school diploma or equivalent, with less than 5 years of related work experience and short-term on-the-job training.
O*NET's survey reads stricter, and the two sources measure different things: O*NET rates the occupation Job Zone Four, Considerable Preparation Needed, with 48% of survey respondents saying a bachelor's degree is required, 22% an associate's degree and 15% some college.
BLS describes the route people take: starting as onsite managers and moving into assistant property manager positions, or beginning as assistant managers and advancing to property manager as responsibilities grow with more and larger properties.
Credentials mark the rungs.
NAAEI's career map pairs its Certified Apartment Leasing Professional (CALP) with leasing, its Certified Apartment Manager (CAM) with community managers and its Certified Apartment Portfolio Supervisor (CAPS) with portfolio and regional supervisors.
The CAM credential requires 12 months of onsite property management experience, 40 hours of coursework and a four-hour, 185-question proctored online exam.
These are voluntary industry credentials, not licenses: IREM's own graduation rules make the distinction concrete — CPM graduates must hold an active real estate license only if one is required for their position in their state, because the CPM itself is not a license.
Licensing is separate from all of this, and it is state law.
BLS's overview says that in most states property managers must have a property management license or a real estate broker's license, and that managers of federally subsidized public housing must hold certifications.
Confirm the rule in your state
How much do community managers make?
BLS measured the occupation at a median annual wage of $69,990 in May 2025 — $33.65 an hour — for property, real estate and community association managers (SOC 11-9141).
One federal series covers every manager title inside it — community manager, apartment manager, property manager, community association manager — so these are series figures: they cover community managers along with every other title in the series, not a community-manager-only number.
The range is wide.
In May 2025 the lowest-paid 10% earned less than $41,010 and the highest-paid 10% earned more than $139,680, and the OEWS count of payroll jobs in the series — 311,180 of them — shows a mean of $83,710.
OEWS counts wage-and-salary jobs only, so self-employed managers sit outside that 311,180.
Industry survey data lands in the same range.
NAAEI's career map lists a median base salary of $70,900 for community managers, with a 75th percentile of $82,600 — base salary only, before commissions or bonuses, and the page does not state the survey year.
The state-by-state tables are on our community manager salary page.
Find community manager jobs
The occupation is steady rather than explosive.
BLS counted about 460,400 property, real estate and community association manager jobs in 2025 — a figure that includes self-employed managers — and projects 4% growth from 2025 to 2035, about as fast as the average for all occupations.
Turnover does the hiring: BLS projects about 36,900 openings a year over the decade, mostly from replacing workers who change occupations or retire.
Search past the title.
Large operators, third-party management firms and student-housing companies post the same on-site work as community manager, property manager and apartment manager — match your experience to the duties and the community size rather than the label.
Every listing on PropertyManagerHires is property management work, so a search here stays inside the field; use the filters to narrow by pay band and benefits.
Start with the current community manager jobs.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice. Confirm licensing and credential requirements with the real estate commission in the state where you work or plan to work.