Property management statistics for 2026
Sourced, dated numbers on answering service costs, what a property manager's time is worth, maintenance volume and turnover, plus five widely quoted missed-call statistics that don't trace back to any research.
Every number below links to its source and carries its date, so you can check it and quote it. They cover what answering services charge, what a property manager's time is worth, how often tenants request maintenance, and how fast homes and owners turn over. At the end are five missed-call statistics that many answering service websites quote, and what we found when we looked for the research behind them.
Key takeaways
- Answering365, a live answering service, estimates live answering at $0.75 to $2.00 or more per minute, or $150 to $500 a month per property management portfolio (2026).
- Tenants submit an average of 3.3 maintenance requests per unit per year (Hemlane, 193,000+ requests).
- 56% of owners say maintenance support is the main reason they hired a property manager (Buildium, 2026).
- The average property management firm loses 19.5% of its owner clients a year (NARPM, 2021 data).
- The best-known missed-call statistics, like "85% of callers never call back", have no traceable source.
What does it cost to have calls answered?
| Statistic | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Live answering service, per minute | $0.75 to $2.00+ | Answering365 pricing guide (opens in a new tab), June 2026 |
| Live answering service, per call (basic messages) | $0.75 to $2.50 | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Live answering service, per call (scheduling, intake, dispatch) | $3.00 to $7.00+ | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Property management, per portfolio per month (portfolio size not stated) | $150 to $500 | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Setup or activation fee | $50 to $500, one time | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Fee per transferred call | $0.50 to $2.00 | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Fee per script change | $25 to $100 | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Holiday surcharge, where charged | 1.5 to 2 times the normal rate | Answering365, June 2026 |
| Receptionist median pay, before benefits and payroll taxes | $18.27 an hour, $38,010 a year | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (opens in a new tab), May 2025 |
The answering service figures are Answering365's published estimates. For what they mean for a portfolio, see how much an answering service costs.
What is a property manager's time worth?
| Statistic | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Property, real estate and community association managers, mean pay | $40.25 an hour, $83,710 a year | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (opens in a new tab), May 2025 |
| Same occupation, median pay | $33.65 an hour | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 |
These are base pay for the whole occupation, before benefits and payroll taxes. When after-hours calls forward to a manager's own phone, this is the person who takes them.
How often do tenants request maintenance?
| Statistic | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance requests per unit per year | 3.3 on average (3.30 in 2024, up from 2.93 in 2020) | Hemlane (opens in a new tab), 193,000+ requests over eight years |
| Single-family vs multifamily | 3.40 vs 3.23 requests per unit per year | Hemlane |
| Most common category | Plumbing, about 1 in 4 requests | Hemlane |
| Plumbing, HVAC, appliance and electrical combined | About 70% of requests | Hemlane |
| Owners whose main reason for hiring a manager is maintenance support | 56% | Buildium 2026 Property Management Industry Report (opens in a new tab) |
A 100-unit portfolio at Hemlane's average produces about 330 maintenance requests a year, or roughly 27 a month. Hemlane counted requests from every channel, so not all of them arrive by phone. For the ones that do, CoreReach answers each call, sorts it by your urgency rules, and files it as a request with the resident, unit and problem already filled in.
How fast do residents and owners turn over?
| Statistic | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family rental turnover, Invitation Homes | 22.8% a year (2025 and 2024, same-store portfolio) | Invitation Homes 2025 Form 10-K (opens in a new tab) |
| Days a home sits empty between residents, Invitation Homes | 47 days in 2025, up from 40 in 2024 | Invitation Homes 2025 Form 10-K |
| Days to lease a listed apartment | 34 days on average | Apartment List (opens in a new tab), September 2026 |
| Owner (client) churn at property management firms | 19.5% a year on average, 9.6% for the best performers | NARPM Financial Performance Guide (opens in a new tab), 2021 data |
| Property managers planning to grow in 2026 | 75%, against 55% who grew in 2025 | Buildium 2026 Property Management Industry Report |
NARPM's churn figures exclude firms whose portfolios are 20% or more multifamily.
Which missed-call statistics can't be traced to a source?
These five appear on many answering service websites. We followed each one back as far as we could.
| Claim | What we found |
|---|---|
| "85% of callers who can't reach you never call back" | No study, survey or dataset. It appears only in vendor marketing copy |
| "80% of callers sent to voicemail don't leave a message" | The earliest version we found is a 2014 trade-magazine item (opens in a new tab) crediting Forbes, with no study named |
| "Businesses lose $75 billion a year to missed calls" | Comes from a 2018 NewVoiceMedia survey (opens in a new tab) of 2,002 U.S. adults about bad customer experiences in general. It doesn't mention missed calls |
| "A missed call costs $1,200 on average" | Usually credited to call-analytics company Invoca. We couldn't find it in Invoca's published material, and other sites credit it to a different firm |
| "67% of maintenance emergencies happen after hours" | No primary source. It appears only in vendor blog posts |
A sixth is real but narrower than it sounds: "62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered" comes from a study of 85 small businesses by the marketing agency 411 Locals. It counts calls that reached voicemail as unanswered: 37.8% of calls reached a person, 37.8% reached voicemail, and 24.3% got no answer at all.
Missed calls do cost money. To put a number on it for your own business, start from your call records. CoreReach records and transcribes every call, so you'll have that number from the first week.
How did we choose these numbers?
We used primary or first-party sources only: government data, industry associations, public company filings and companies' own published data. Every figure carries its date, because rates, wages and vacancy change every year, and its caveats: who was measured, and what the figure does and doesn't cover. We left out anything we couldn't trace, even when it's widely quoted.
Frequently asked questions
How many maintenance requests does a rental unit generate a year?
About 3.3 on average, according to Hemlane's analysis of more than 193,000 requests. Single-family homes run slightly higher than apartments, at 3.40 against 3.23.
How much does a property manager make?
Property, real estate and community association managers earned a mean of $40.25 an hour, or $83,710 a year, in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median was $33.65 an hour.
Is it true that 85% of callers never call back?
We couldn't find any study behind that figure. Treat it as unverified.
Can I use these statistics in my own content?
Yes. Please cite the original source shown for each figure, and link to this page if it helped you find it.