Property Management is a People Business

The Juggling Act of Property Management

Today’s property managers and letting agents often feel like they’re juggling flaming torches. A typical day can entail fielding a morning flood of tenant emails, coordinating an emergency repair by lunchtime, and placating a concerned landlord by evening - all while logging compliance paperwork in between. It’s no wonder the industry is described as “chaotic and stressful and busy”. The sheer volume of admin and firefighting can leave even the most seasoned professionals exhausted. In fact, one 2022 study found employee turnover in property management runs around 33% per year, significantly above average. When a third of your team could churn annually, it signals an unsustainable strain. Burnout has become the elephant in the room - and it’s not just the staff who feel the impact, but landlords and tenants as well.

The Human Touch vs. the Machine Mindset

In the drive to manage all these moving parts, agencies have rightly invested in processes and efficiency. Streamlined workflows, standardised templates, automated reminders - these all help keep the machine running. But focusing solely on operational efficiency misses a crucial fact: property management is fundamentally a people business. Emotional intelligence, responsiveness and reliability are not fluffy extras; they’re the bedrock of success in this field. A landlord isn’t going to be impressed that you processed a tenancy agreement in record time if you never return their calls. A tenant isn’t likely to renew a lease just because the accounting was efficient - they remember how you made them feel when there was a leak in the flat.

Real-world feedback underscores this point. In a UK survey, poor communication was the number one complaint landlords and tenants had about their letting agents. Imagine entrusting your property to a manager who ticks every box on paper, but leaves you in the dark when an issue arises. It’s so damaging that 77% of landlords in the survey cited lack of communication as their top frustration, and over a quarter said they’d rather ditch their agent altogether next time than put up with feeling ignored. The costs of such disconnect are very real: lost clients (or landlords choosing to self-manage), shorter tenancies, and a tarnished reputation in the community. No amount of efficiency can compensate for a breakdown in trust. As one industry commentator put it, policies and systems are vital but empathy is absolutely necessary - leading with empathy will build you a better business. In other words, improving the human side of property management isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a strategic advantage.

When Staff Are Overwhelmed, Service Suffers

Consider the internal impact of an efficiency-only mindset. If your team is drowning in mundane tasks and constantly stretched thin, their ability to respond warmly and thoughtfully to tenants and owners inevitably wanes. An overwhelmed property manager might choose to ignore a non-urgent tenant email for days simply due to inbox overload - but to that tenant, the silence feels personal. Staff burnout doesn’t just lead to higher turnover; it erodes service quality long before an employee actually hands in their notice. High churn itself then feeds back into a poorer experience for clients, creating a vicious cycle. Studies have noted that a revolving door of property managers makes residents feel less connected and less cared for. The message is clear: a fatigued, frazzled team cannot deliver the level of communication and care that modern landlords and tenants expect.

The business costs of this are measurable. Replacing employees frequently is expensive and time-consuming. Losing a single landlord’s business due to dissatisfaction can mean tens of thousands in lost future revenue. And negative word-of-mouth spreads quickly in local markets (especially if tenants feel mistreated). Simply put, burnout and poor communication burn holes in the bottom line. Forward-thinking agencies recognise that supporting their staff’s wellbeing and prioritising personal connections isn’t at odds with profitability - it fuels it.

Using Tech to Empower People, Not Replace Them

This is where technology enters the story, not as a threat to the human touch but as its enabler. The property management industry has been notoriously slow to modernise, and managers remain overwhelmed with manual, repetitive tasks that add little value. Research suggests a staggering 85 to 90% of day-to-day tasks in property management are routine and low-skill - think scheduling inspections, chasing rent arrears, answering the same maintenance questions over and over. These are exactly the kinds of duties that smart automation and AI tools handle well. By offloading the drudgery to software, your team is freed to focus on what software cannot do: building relationships, exercising judgement, and delivering empathetic service.

Crucially, adopting automation does not mean dehumanising your business - in fact, it should do the opposite. One industry article noted that investing in automation is really an investment in your "people power." When your staff spend less time on data entry and more time calling a landlord to proactively update them, or meeting a tenant face-to-face, service improves. Freeing up your team to be attentive and proactive creates a virtuous cycle: happy tenants, happy landlords, and happier employees too. With automation, your employees have more time to focus on creating a fantastic experience for tenants and owners alike. This level of delight powers your growth as a company. The best technology in our sector works behind the scenes to make the human-to-human interactions more meaningful.

For example, tools like AskVinny are emerging to support this human-centric shift in property management. AskVinny is an AI-powered assistant designed for letting agencies - it can separate urgent issues from routine admin, respond to common tenant queries 24/7, and even help coordinate maintenance, all through simple messaging. By handling a large chunk of the repetitive workload (in some cases up to 90% of incoming queries and tasks), such a tool ensures that nothing falls through the cracks. More importantly, it means that when a landlord or tenant does need personal attention, the property manager has the bandwidth and the information at hand to respond quickly and thoughtfully. In essence, the technology takes care of the busywork, so your people can take care of your clients. The end result? Teams that aren’t constantly firefighting can finally be proactive. They can focus on that late-night phone call to reassure a worried tenant, or spend an extra ten minutes finding the perfect contractor who will treat an elderly resident with kindness - the kinds of actions that clients remember and appreciate.

A More Human Future, Powered by People and Tech Together

Reorienting property management around the human element isn’t just a feel-good slogan; it’s a recipe for resilience and growth. When your staff have the time and support to act with empathy and urgency, landlords notice. When tenants feel heard and informed, they complain less and renew more. And when modern tools are leveraged to amplify (not replace) the judgement of experienced property managers, agencies can scale their portfolios without stretching their team to breaking point. As the industry evolves, the winners will be those who marry operational efficiency with emotional intelligence - the agencies that see technology as a way to make property management more human, not less.

In the end, what sets a great property management business apart isn’t just how fast you fix a boiler or how neatly you balance the books. It’s the trust you build and the peace of mind you deliver. By empowering our people with smart tools and refocusing on communication, empathy, and reliability, we can turn a historically hectic profession into one that is not only more efficient, but also far more humane. The challenges of today - staff burnout, information overload, scaling pains - can be overcome. With a renewed focus on the human side and the right tech in place, property management can step confidently into a future where people come first, and everyone involved reaps the rewards. The message for property managers and letting agents is an optimistic one: commit to making your work more human at its core, and you’ll unlock a strategic advantage that no spreadsheet or checklist could ever replicate.

Sources

• IRPM Report on Property Management Careers, 2022.

• Fixflo “State of Repairs” Report, 2021.

• HomeLet Landlord Survey, 2023.

• NRLA research briefings on agent satisfaction and self-management trends.

• ARLA Propertymark data on staff retention challenges.

• Buildium “State of the Property Management Industry” Reports (2021–2024).

• Deloitte UK PropTech report, 2023.

• Goodlord and Reapit automation case studies.

• Entrepreneur.com: “Why Emotional Intelligence Will Be a Key Competitive Advantage in Real Estate” (2023).

• The Negotiator: “AI, Automation and the Human Touch” editorial (2022).

• Housing Technology Magazine (Various issues on proptech and operational transformation).

• AskVinny direct customer interview insights