Hiring the first leasing agent for a property management company

This guide is for property management companies in Canada and the US where leasing is still done by the owner of the company or a manager who also has a portfolio to look after. The first leasing hire usually pays off when vacancies start running longer because nobody has time to reply, book and show quickly. The best way to decide is to look at where a leasing week actually goes, because not all of it needs the same kind of person, and some of it may not need a hire at all.

Where a leasing week goes

Here’s an example week of leasing for a company with around 250 units and a handful of turnovers a month. The hours are illustrative, so swap in your own week if you track it.

Task	Hours
Answering inquiries by phone, text and email	10
Booking, confirming and rescheduling showings	4
Following up with people who viewed	3
Running showings, including travel	9
Screening applicants and calling references	6
Preparing leases and coordinating move-ins	5
Pricing, photos and listings	3
Total	40

Two kinds of work are mixed together here. About 17 of the 40 hours are answering, booking and following up: the same questions about parking and pets, finding a time that works, confirming it, chasing a viewer who went quiet. The other 23 hours need someone in person or a judgment call: showing the home, reading an applicant, deciding between two good ones, getting the lease right.

When the hire pays off

The cost of not hiring shows up as days empty. When leasing is squeezed in around other work, replies go out hours later instead of minutes, showings are only possible on certain evenings, and good renters book somewhere else first. Each extra week a $2,000 unit sits empty costs its owner about $460 in rent, and owners notice.

So weigh the agent’s salary against the days of vacancy the hire would save across your portfolio, and what it frees the current person to do. If the person doing leasing today is also your best property manager or the founder, getting a day or two of their week back is often worth as much as the faster fills.

Decide which half you’re hiring for

Before writing the job post, decide which part of that week you’re actually hiring for. Some companies hire one person for all of it. Others hand the answering, booking and follow-up to AI teammates, like Omnia by Tuze, and hire the agent for the showings, the applicants and the judgment calls. That second approach often means the first hire can come later, and the person you bring on spends their week on the work that needs them.

Either way, write the role around the in-person half. Look for someone who is good with people at a door, notices things on a walkthrough, is organised with paperwork and is comfortable saying no kindly. The answering half is a different skill, and if a person is doing it, it’s the part that suffers first when showings pile up.

What to hand over first

Don’t hand over everything on day one. A sensible order is:

1. Showings, with a clear script for what to point out and what to ask
2. Follow-ups with viewers, using messages you’ve written together
3. Screening, with your written criteria and you reviewing each decision at first
4. Leases and move-ins, once they’ve watched you do a few
5. Pricing, last, because it depends most on knowing your market and owners

Write each of these down as you hand it over. The notes become your leasing process, and the next hire learns from them.

How you’ll know it’s working

Pick a few numbers before they start and look at them monthly: how quickly inquiries get a reply, how many days homes sit empty between tenants, how many showings turn into applications, and how many owners mention vacancies when they talk to you. If days empty go down and the person who used to do leasing has their week back, the hire is doing its job.

How to write a rental listing that gets the right inquiries and booking rental showings without the back and forth are useful to hand a new agent in their first week.