A property manager is the person or company an owner employs to run rental real estate day to day: filling vacancies, collecting rent, arranging maintenance, keeping the books and following housing rules.
Managers work on apartment communities, condominium and homeowner associations, commercial buildings, subsidized affordable housing and senior housing — employed directly by an owner or through a management company.
What is a property manager?
A property manager runs real estate for its owner.
The Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) puts the arrangement plainly: property managers are employed by real estate owners, either directly or through a management company, and the type of employer changes the nature of the work.
The job is operational, not ownership.
BLS separates real estate asset managers from onsite property managers: asset managers plan and direct the purchase, sale and development of properties, which is long-term strategic financial planning rather than day-to-day operations.
The title is also an umbrella.
The federal occupation covering the field — property, real estate and community association managers — lists apartment manager, building rental manager, community association manager, condominium association manager, homeowner association manager, leasing property manager and real estate manager among its direct-match job titles.
O*NET adds commercial property manager, community manager, onsite manager and resident manager to the same occupation.
All of those titles share one BLS series, so one set of federal wage and outlook figures covers them.
The employment relationship is also what separates a manager from a landlord: the landlord is the owner, and the manager is who the owner employs — on staff or through a firm — to do the work of renting and running the property.
What does a property manager do?
BLS lists the occupation's typical duties: showing properties, explaining lease terms, collecting monthly fees, inspecting facilities, arranging repairs, paying or delegating bills, contracting for services, settling complaints, keeping rental records, and preparing budgets and financial reports.
One more duty sits on the same list and shapes the whole job: complying with anti-discrimination laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Federal Fair Housing Amendment Act, when advertising or leasing properties.
O*NET task data fills in the week around those duties.
Managers act as liaisons between on-site managers or tenants and owners, market vacant space through leasing agents or advertising, and review rents to make sure they are in line with rental markets.
There is a paperwork task with its own weight: determining and certifying the eligibility of prospective tenants, following government regulations.
The week is full time for most managers, and it stretches.
BLS notes managers 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.
Where do property managers work: apartments, rental homes, HOAs, commercial, affordable, student housing
In 2025, 56% of property, real estate and community association managers worked in the real estate industry, 31% were self-employed and 2% worked for religious, grantmaking, civic, professional and similar organizations, per BLS.
IREM sorts the employment into two models: the owner employs managers directly, or employs them through a management company.
Self-employment is the third path.
The National Apartment Association Education Institute (NAAEI) describes the average apartment community as 254 units with at least six onsite staff, including a community manager, assistant manager, leasing consultants and maintenance technicians.
Condominium, cooperative and planned communities run on a different employment model.
BLS describes community association managers as usually hired by an association's volunteer board of directors to manage common areas and services, and O*NET lists meeting with boards and committees to resolve disputes among the occupation's tasks.
Affordable housing adds program paperwork to those duties.
The O*NET task of certifying prospective tenants' eligibility under government regulations sits in the week, and BLS adds a formal requirement: managers of federally subsidized public housing must hold certifications.
Commercial management deals more in contracts and finances.
BLS notes employers may prefer college graduates for commercial management positions, naming business administration, accounting, finance, real estate and public administration as relevant degree fields.
Single-family rental homes and student housing sit in the field too; the federal sources this guide cites describe the occupation by the building types above.
BLS's demand picture names apartments, condominiums, cooperatives, planned communities and senior housing as the buildings management companies operate, with demand following the number of people living in them.
What do you need to become a property manager?
Formally, the entry bar is low.
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: BLS reports the typical entry-level education for the occupation, while O*NET's percentages are what its survey respondents said the occupation requires.
In O*NET's survey, 48% of respondents said a bachelor's degree is required, 22% an associate's degree and 15% some college, and O*NET rates the occupation Job Zone Four, Considerable Preparation Needed.
BLS's official entry figure remains the diploma.
Onsite property management jobs sit at the diploma end, while BLS notes employers may prefer college graduates for commercial management positions that deal with finances or contracts.
Experience comes from adjacent work.
BLS names real estate brokers and sales agents and customer service representatives as examples of related occupations that give future property managers the work experience they typically need.
Licensing is the requirement that varies from state to state.
BLS states 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.
IREM's summary explains what triggers it.
Most states treat leasing, offers to lease, negotiating leases, renting and collecting rent as covered real estate activities, so property managers who do not lease or rent are often exempt.
IREM also notes that many states exempt on-site residential managers as long as they do not engage in leasing activities, and that most states require a real estate license for third-party management.
Do not assume from a title.
Exemptions turn on your duties and who employs you, and each state's real estate commission writes its own rules.
Confirm the rule in your state
How much do property managers make?
BLS measured the occupation at a median annual wage of $69,990 in May 2025, or $33.65 an hour, for property, real estate and community association managers (SOC 11-9141).
The range around that median 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 BLS's OEWS survey of payroll jobs puts the mean at $83,710 a year.
Industry moves the median.
In May 2025 it was $64,290 in real estate and $73,620 in religious, grantmaking, civic, professional and similar organizations; BLS does not break that group down further.
BLS publishes one set of federal figures for the whole series, not one per title.
Apartment manager, community manager, resident manager and leasing manager all sit inside SOC 11-9141, so the figures above cover every one of those titles.
The full tables, state by state and percentile by percentile, are on the property manager salary page.
What is the property management career ladder?
BLS describes the first rungs.
People may start as onsite managers and move into assistant property manager positions, or begin as assistant managers and advance to property manager, with responsibilities growing as they take on more and larger properties.
NAAEI describes residential property management careers as offering room for growth 'as the industry typically promotes from within.'
Multi-property supervision sits inside the same occupation: regional managers share the one 11-9141 pay series with every other title in it.
Beside it runs the asset management track, which BLS separates out as long-term strategic work — planning and directing the purchase, sale and development of properties — rather than day-to-day operations.
Ownership is the other exit.
BLS notes experienced property managers may open their own property management firms, a path consistent with the 31% of managers BLS counted as self-employed in 2025.
Is property management a good career?
The honest answer starts with size and turnover rather than slogans.
BLS counted about 460,400 property, real estate and community association manager jobs in 2025, a figure that includes self-employed managers.
The 2025–2035 outlook is steady rather than explosive.
BLS projects 4% growth, about as fast as the average for all occupations, taking employment from 460,400 to 477,600 — a gain of 17,100 jobs — with about 36,900 openings a year, mostly from replacing workers who change occupations or retire.
Two forces pull in opposite directions.
BLS says demand will be driven by the number of people living in the buildings management companies operate — apartments, condominiums, cooperatives, planned communities and senior housing — while automation of some tasks, such as posting vacancies and assigning maintenance requests, may slow growth.
The work itself is the trade-off.
Most managers work full time, and BLS notes the schedule may stretch into off-duty emergencies or evening meetings with residents, owners or association boards; some managers are required to live onsite.
Whether that trade suits you is a preference, not a statistic.
What the numbers do support is accessibility.
BLS's typical entry profile is a high school diploma, less than 5 years of related experience and short-term on-the-job training, and its advancement description runs from onsite and assistant roles toward property manager — and, for some, to a firm of their own.
Find property manager jobs
Every listing on PropertyManagerHires is property management work, so a search here stays inside the field: apartment, community, affordable, student and commercial management roles, alongside the leasing, office and maintenance teams that keep a property running.
Use the filters to narrow by pay band, and read each posting for the property type and team you would be joining.
Start with the current property manager jobs.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice. Confirm licensing requirements with the real estate regulator in the state where you work or plan to work.