Property manager job description template (copy, edit, post)

A property manager posting does seven jobs at once: it describes the role, lists the duties, separates required qualifications from preferred ones, discloses the schedule and on-call terms, describes the physical work, states pay and benefits, and closes with equal-opportunity language.

Write the description first — the how to hire a property manager guide covers the sourcing, screening and offer decisions that surround it.

The blocks below take them in order, with the lines state law reaches flagged as they come up.

Skip a block and you leave the questions experienced candidates ask before applying unanswered.

What is a property manager's role in one paragraph?

The summary block sits directly under the job title and answers three things in three or four sentences: what property the person runs, what they are accountable for, and who they report to.

Write it last if that helps — it is the condensed version of the duty list below it.

[Company] manages [property type] in [market]. The property manager runs day-to-day operations at [Property or portfolio]: rent collection and delinquency follow-up, resident relations, vendor and maintenance oversight, inspections, and monthly reporting to [owner, asset manager, or regional manager]. The role supervises [on-site staff] and is the first point of contact for [ownership or the board].

Name the employer type in that paragraph — owner-operator, third-party management firm, or association — because the reporting line tells a candidate which job this is.

A manager answering to an out-of-state owner runs a different week than one reporting into a regional manager's portfolio, and the summary is where you show which one you are hiring for.

What duties and responsibilities should you list?

List the duties your property actually needs, grouped so a candidate can scan them in one pass.

The groups below fit a conventional multifamily assignment; the property-type section near the end of this page covers what changes for affordable programs, student, senior, association and commercial work.

• Financial. Rent collection and posting, delinquency follow-up under company policy, budget input, month-end reporting packages, and variance notes the owner can act on.
• Residents. Move-in and move-out coordination, renewal handling, complaint resolution and documentation, and the retention work your community runs.
• Property. Work-order routing and follow-through, vendor bidding and supervision, preventive maintenance scheduling with your maintenance team, unit inspections, and make-ready timelines.
• Leasing support. Covering tours and applications when the leasing office is short, processing applications under company criteria, and monitoring occupancy and renewal pipelines.
• Compliance. Company policy enforcement, complete resident files and records, and any program compliance the property carries.
• People. Scheduling, training and supervision of on-site staff, and the staffing recommendations that go up to your regional or ownership level.

Give fair housing its own duty line rather than burying it inside "compliance."

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in renting because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability; those seven classes are named at 42 U.S.C. § 3604.

State and local laws can reach further, so check the rules where the property sits before you finalize the wording.

The liability runs uphill, too: under HUD's rule at 24 CFR 100.7(b), an owner or management company is liable for a discriminatory housing practice by its agent or employee regardless of whether it knew or should have known of the conduct.

That is the employer reason the posting carries the line — the role follows the company's fair housing policy and completes the company's training.

If the training does not exist yet, the employer-side guide to fair housing training for staff covers standing it up.

What qualifications, licenses and certifications should you require vs. prefer?

Split the block in two.

Required means you will not interview without it; preferred means it moves a resume up the pile.

Blurring the two can thin your pipeline: preferences written as requirements give candidates a reason to screen themselves out before they apply.

Worth requiring: experience managing your property type at roughly your unit count, supervision experience sized to your staffing, fair housing knowledge as your policy defines it, budgeting and reporting literacy, and the property management software you actually run — named, not implied.

Worth preferring: industry credentials, a niche match such as lease-up or association experience, and vendor-management depth where the property is older or scattered.

The license line needs care, because who must hold a license to lease or manage for others is set state by state, and exemptions turn on duties, pay, and who the person works for — not on the job title.

Write the line as a commitment rather than a ruling:

Holds, or obtains within [timeframe] of hire, the [state] license required for these duties.

That phrasing stays correct whether your state runs property management through its real estate broker and sales agent licenses, adds a separate property management license on top, or exempts some on-site arrangements by statute.

The state-by-state licensing requirements guide lists each state's rule, so you can name the right license class in the posting instead of guessing at it.

Keep credentials in the preferred block and out of the license line.

NAA's CAM, IREM's CPM and ARM, and CAMICB's CMCA are voluntary industry designations — industry training and a hiring signal, not the state's permission to manage.

IREM's own CPM requirements draw the line explicitly: graduates hold the real estate license only where one is required for their position, because the CPM itself is not a license.

A posting that treats a credential as the license invites the wrong candidate and reads as confused to the right one.

What schedule, on-call and physical demands should you disclose?

Schedule.

State the office hours, the weekend coverage plan, and the weeks that run heavy — month-end close, the turn window between lease cycles, board meeting weeks for association work.

A posting that surprises a new hire with Saturday showings starts the relationship badly; the schedule block is where you prevent that.

On-call.

Describe the rotation: how often the manager carries the phone, whether they are first call or backup behind the maintenance technician, and what counts as an after-hours emergency.

The definition matters beyond scheduling.

Under the FLSA's hours-worked rules at 29 CFR 785.17, on-call time is working time when the employee must stay on the premises or so close they cannot use the time for their own purposes.

An employee who merely leaves word where they can be reached is not working while on call.

Confirm the pay treatment of your rotation with the DOL Wage and Hour Division or employment counsel.

Physical demands.

Describe this job's own physical work plainly: daily property walks, stairs during unit and building inspections, mechanical-room or attic checks where the property has them, and occasional hands-on help during turns.

Skip the generic lifting line borrowed from another industry's template — it tells candidates nothing about this property and reads as filler.

Housing.

If the position comes with an apartment, put it in the posting with its terms: the rent, the utilities, and whether living on site is a condition of the job.

Take the tax and pay questions to your CPA before you promise anything — the employer-side guide to employee housing and rent discounts covers the questions to bring.

Which pay range and benefits lines are required or recommended?

The pay line is the block where state law reaches into the posting itself.

Four state statutes we verified are below.

Local rules can add to them — New York City has its own pay-posting law our research did not verify — so confirm the requirements where the property sits before you publish.

The thresholds differ, and the statutes reach different pieces of the ad: Washington and Colorado require a benefits description in the posting, and Colorado also wants the application window's expected close date.

Note the limits of what we verified — the California and New York statutes were read from a legal database mirror, and the Colorado text we read may not reflect recent amendments.

Confirm the current requirements with the state labor agency before you rely on any of them.

Where no posting law applies to you, a pay range is still worth the line: it lets candidates judge the job before they spend time on the application, so mismatched candidates can rule themselves out before they apply.

Pair the range with its basis — salary, or salary plus renewal or occupancy incentives — and name the incentive terms in the same block.

One more line interacts with pay: the classification you intend.

If you plan to treat the manager as overtime-exempt, the posted salary has to support that.

The federal white-collar salary level in force in 2026 is $684 per week under 29 CFR 541.600.

That is the level the DOL restored by a final rule published May 15, 2026, after the 2024 increase was vacated in court, and free or discounted housing cannot be counted toward it.

A posted range does not settle the classification by itself — the salary level is only part of the exemption — so confirm the treatment with the DOL Wage and Hour Division or employment counsel before you post.

The benefits lines: name what you actually offer — medical, dental and vision coverage, paid time off, a retirement plan, training or certification sponsorship, and the apartment if the job includes one.

Keep the housing terms in their own sentence, and flag nothing as tax-free; how staff housing is taxed depends on facts this template cannot settle, which is why the CPA review comes before the posting does.

How should the template change by property type?

The blocks stay the same across property types; the duty list and the license and program lines are what move.

Rework these before you post:

Conventional multifamily.

Whether you title the seat property manager, apartment manager, or apartment complex manager, the template as written fits one site: the duty list centers on renewals, work-order oversight, month-end reporting, and the weekend rotation.

Affordable housing (LIHTC or HUD programs).

Add a program line to the duty list: income certification and recertification files, annual recertification work, and the agency reviews the property answers to.

Program rules come from the agency that administers the program — HUD for its programs, the state housing finance agency for LIHTC — so name the program in the posting and require experience that matches it.

Student housing.

The calendar is the difference: academic-year lease cycles, the turn between terms, and guarantor paperwork.

Put the turn window and the lease calendar into the schedule block so candidates can plan against it.

Senior housing and adult communities.

Emphasize the resident-services side of the duty list and any coordination with outside service providers.

Keep the role distinct from the sales-counselor and care roles that share the campus.

Associations (HOA and condo).

The client is the board: contractor bids, reserve and budget meetings, violation and architectural-process administration, and board packets replace the owner report.

A few states license or register community association managers under rules separate from the real estate license — the community association manager licensing guide lists them — so write the license line to match.

Commercial.

Tenant relations move to commercial tenants on longer leases; add common area maintenance (CAM) billing and reconciliation, building-systems oversight, and the vendor contracts that come with them.

Single-family portfolios.

Scattered sites change the job: drive time between homes, vendor-dependent maintenance, and turns handled house by house.

Say the territory size in the posting so candidates can judge the travel.

The fair-chance line.

Write the closing criminal-history wording to the rules where the property sits.

California's Fair Chance Act (Government Code 12952) bars employers with five or more employees from asking about or considering conviction history until after a conditional offer.

New York City's Fair Chance Act holds criminal-history inquiries until after a conditional offer and sets out the process an employer must follow before withdrawing one over conviction history.

State and city rules differ on timing, so confirm the current requirements with the agency where you hire before you post.

The omissions that can cost you candidates.

A posting with no pay line, no schedule, and no on-call terms asks a manager to apply blind; give them the answers up front.

Other failures to check for in the draft: a title that says only "property manager" without the property type, a wish list of preferences written as requirements, and a license line that never names the state.

Each is a one-line fix that saves screening time.

Where to post it.

With the copy settled, match the channel to the seat: our guide to where to post it compares the niche boards, association job boards, general boards and local pipelines, and covers the pay-posting rules that can follow a posting when a third party places it.

Before you publish, read the draft the way a candidate will — summary first, pay line second, duties third.

Keep the interview honest to the posting.

Candidates should hear about the same rotation, the same reporting line, and the same property the posting describes, and your scorecards should measure against the required block rather than against each other.

Fold license verification into the same structured screening process.

For background checks, the fair-chance timing above comes first: where those laws apply, conviction-history questions wait until after a conditional offer.

Employer information, not legal, tax, or licensing advice. Job posting, pay disclosure, fair-chance and licensing rules are state and local — confirm the current requirements with your state labor agency, the state real estate commission, HUD where its programs apply, and your attorney or CPA before you post.