Questions to Ask a Property Manager During an Interview
Questions to ask a property manager during an interview, written for whoever is doing the hiring: a rental owner choosing someone to run a building, or a management company filling the job. The opening group covers experience, unit load, fair housing, local rules and two cases that show how a candidate works. After it come leasing, tenants and late rent, repairs, and owners and money, mostly by way of the last real case: the last turnover, the last eviction, the last deposit dispute. Each question has a note on what a strong or a weak answer sounds like, and where the rules depend on the state or country, the note tells you to check what applies locally. The final group is for the other side of the table: a candidate for a property manager job working out what to ask the interviewer.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Start here
How many units are you responsible for right now, and what kinds?
Why ask it
Start with the load. Someone carrying two hundred scattered single-family homes has a very different working day from someone with one sixty-unit building, and the skills only partly transfer. Ask how many of those units they handle personally and how many belong to the office.
How long have you worked in property management, and how did you get into it?
Why ask it
Years on their own say little. Many managers came up through one side of the work (the leasing desk, maintenance, the accounts), and that side tends to stay their strongest. Find out which it was, then spend more of the interview on the others.
Which fair housing rules apply to the properties you manage now, and when did one last change what you did?
Why ask it
Who is protected, and what may be asked of an applicant, differs by country, state and sometimes city, so a good answer names the rules for one place instead of reciting a principle. The second half is the test: a listing reworded, a question dropped from the application form. Read up on your own area before the interview so you can tell a right answer from a confident one.
Walk me through your last turnover, from the tenant handing back keys to the next one moving in.
Why ask it
The sequence and the day count show how they plan. Listen for whether cleaning, painting and listing overlapped or ran one after another, because work done strictly in turn is where the empty weeks come from. Then ask how many days the unit sat and what it rented for next.
A tenant calls at eleven at night saying water is coming through the ceiling. What happens in the first hour?
Why ask it
You want the water off, the tenant safe, and photographs taken before anything is moved. Candidates who begin with calling the owner or filing a work order have not been the person on the phone at that hour. Follow up with which plumber they would ring, and whether that number is already in their phone.
What does this city require of a landlord that the next town over does not?
Why ask it
Rental registration, inspection schedules, limits on rent increases and notice periods can all change at a city line. A local candidate should name two or three differences without having to think. One moving in from elsewhere should say where they would look them up (the housing office, a landlord association, a lawyer) before signing a first lease here.
What made you start looking, and what will your current owners or employer say when I call?
Why ask it
Reasons for leaving in this trade tend to be concrete: a portfolio that doubled without extra help, an owner who stopped paying for repairs, a company that was sold. Any of them is fine if it is told without bitterness. Say that you would like to phone one of those owners, with their agreement, and see whether the account shifts.
Which property management software have you worked in, and which report do you open without being asked?
Why ask it
The product name is the least useful part, because a new system can be learned on the job. Someone who keeps their own records will name a report (the rent roll, the delinquency list, open work orders) and the day of the week they check it. If the answer stops at the brand, somebody else was probably keeping the books.
Do you hold a license or certification for this work, and is one required here?
Why ask it
Whether a property manager needs a real estate license, and for which tasks, depends on the state or country, so look up your own rule before you ask. A candidate who can say exactly what they may and may not do without one (sign a lease, quote a rent, hold a deposit) is showing the care you want around notices and deadlines.
Leasing, maintenance, bookkeeping, tenant conflict: which would you hand to someone else if you could?
Why ask it
This is the strengths and weaknesses question in a form that gets a straight answer. The job is four trades in one and nobody is equally good at all of them. What they name tells you what support to put around them, and 'none of them' means you have not heard the truth yet.
Leasing
How many of your units are empty today, and how long has the longest one sat?
Why ask it
A manager who knows the portfolio answers from memory, down to the address. The unit that has sat longest is the one to dig into: is it the price, the condition, or an owner who will not budge on either? What they have already tried there is worth more than an occupancy percentage.
Where did the applicants for your last vacancy come from, and how many showings did it take to sign a lease?
Why ask it
A manager who knows that a dozen inquiries became four showings and one application can tell a pricing problem from a presentation problem. Find out who took the photographs and wrote the listing. If it is still online, look it up afterwards.
What would you list this property at, and how did you get to that number?
Why ask it
Ask before you tell them your own figure. A grounded answer rests on three or four comparable rentals with addresses and dates, not on a range. Be careful with a number well above your own that arrives without them: it is pleasant to hear, and you pay for it in empty weeks.
Take me through how you screen an application, from the form arriving to the decision.
Why ask it
Pay attention to the order of the checks and to what is verified against what: pay stubs against a call to the employer, a previous landlord against the address history. Every applicant should go through the same steps in the same order. What may be asked, charged for or held against someone varies by place, so ask how they keep to the rules where your property is.
How do you decide on an applicant who is just below your income threshold?
Why ask it
The safe answer is a written standard applied the same way to everyone, with the exceptions set out in advance: a guarantor, or a larger deposit where the local rules permit one. Ask when they last used an exception and for whom. A decision that turns on a feeling about the applicant is the kind that can end in a discrimination complaint.
Tell me about a time you were wrong about a tenant.
Why ask it
Both directions are useful: the applicant they nearly rejected who turned out excellent, or the one who looked ideal and stopped paying in month four. Then ask what they changed in their screening afterwards. If nothing changed, the story is an anecdote and not a lesson.
How do you record a property's condition at move-in?
Why ask it
Dated photographs of every room and a checklist the tenant signs are what a deduction has to rest on a year or two later. Ask where those files live and how quickly they could pull up one from three years ago. Some places require a particular form or a joint inspection, so check that they know the rule where your property is.
A good tenant's lease ends in ninety days and the rent is below market. How do you handle the renewal?
Why ask it
The answer should contain arithmetic: an empty month plus cleaning, paint and advertising, set against a year of the increase. Managers who always push to the market figure and managers who never raise rent are both skipping that sum. Where increases are capped or need a set notice period, they should be able to say what the limit is for your area.
Tenants
What is your routine in the first ten days of the month when rent has not arrived?
Why ask it
Ask for days and actions: a reminder on one day, a phone call on another, a formal notice after that. Grace periods, late fees and the earliest date a notice can go out are set by the lease and by local law, so the days they give should fit the place where they work. A candidate with no rhythm at all is running collections by mood.
A tenant with a clean record tells you this month's rent will be two weeks late. What do you say?
Why ask it
A collections routine is the rule, and this is the judgment call inside it. Good answers put the new date in writing, treat the late fee the way the lease says for everyone, and tell the owner the same day. Be wary of both extremes: the manager who serves notice on a five-year tenant without a conversation, and the one who makes private arrangements nobody else can see.
Tell me about the most difficult tenant you have dealt with, and how it ended.
Why ask it
Skip to the ending. A story that finishes with the tenant still in place and paying shows more skill than one that finishes with them gone. Notice the vocabulary too: behavior they can describe (three missed appointments, a dog off the leash) or a verdict on the person.
Think of the last three tenants who moved out. Why did each of them go?
Why ask it
A job in another city or a house purchase is nobody's fault. A repair that dragged on for a month, or a rent increase that arrived without a conversation, belongs to the manager. If they cannot say why people left, they never asked, and you will be paying for turnovers nobody tried to prevent.
Describe the last conversation you had with a tenant about a deposit deduction.
Why ask it
Two things should be in the story: a line drawn between ordinary wear and damage, and invoices or photographs put in front of the tenant. Then ask what they do when the move-in record says nothing about the item in dispute. The deadline for returning a deposit, and what happens if it is missed, is set locally. They should know theirs without looking it up.
Two neighbors are each complaining about the other's noise. What do you do this week?
Why ask it
You are checking that they hear both sides before anything goes out in writing, and that they know what the lease says about quiet hours. Jumping to a formal notice on one complaint is a mistake, and so is hoping it blows over. Either way a tenant can end up leaving over something one conversation would have settled.
The water will be off in the whole building for a day next week. How do the tenants find out?
Why ask it
More than one channel, with a date for each, is the mark of experience: a notice on every door, a text or email, a reminder the evening before. The better candidates think of who it hits hardest, the night-shift worker asleep at noon or the family with a newborn, and offer them something. How much notice planned work or entry requires is set locally, so see whether they know the figure.
A tenant in a no-pets building asks to keep an assistance animal. What do you do?
Why ask it
Assistance animals are often covered by different rules from pets, and those rules vary by country and state. The answer you want is a pause: they take the request in writing, check what the law there lets them ask for, and reply within a set time. A flat no on the spot, or a pet fee quoted from habit, is how a routine request becomes a formal complaint.
Talk me through the last eviction you ran, start to finish.
Why ask it
A real account has dates in it, a notice served, usually a hearing, and something that went wrong with service or paperwork. Ask what they tried before filing and what the whole thing cost the owner. The process differs from one state or country to the next, so judge the detail and not whether it matches what you have heard elsewhere. If they have never run one, ask who would.
Repairs
Tell me about a repair that turned out much larger than it first looked.
Why ask it
The good version includes the moment they realized the scope had changed and how quickly the owner heard about it. A candidate with no such story either has very new properties or did not notice.
How do you choose who does a repair, and at what cost do you get a second quote?
Why ask it
Good answers carry a figure above which a second price is automatic, and two names for each of the trades they call most, so that neither plumber gets comfortable. Then ask whether they or their employer earn anything from a contractor they send work to. Plenty of honest arrangements exist, and you would still want to hear about it today.
What do you do when a contractor does poor work?
Why ask it
First find out how they would know: does anyone look at a finished job before the invoice is paid? Then ask about the last contractor they stopped using, and why. A manager who has never dropped one is either lucky or unwilling to have that conversation with a tradesperson they have known for years.
Six repair requests arrive on a Monday morning. How do you decide which are done today?
Why ask it
Sorting by instinct is not an answer. You want categories: no heat, no water and a door that will not lock go first, and the dripping faucet gets a date. Follow up with what they tell the tenant whose job waits, and whether local rules set a deadline for any of these repairs.
What preventive maintenance do you schedule every year, and what did it catch last time?
Why ask it
Anyone can list gutters, filters, smoke alarms and the heating service. The second half separates a calendar from a habit, because a manager who really does the rounds has a find to report: a corroded valve, a blocked vent, a roof seam lifting before the rain came.
How often do you walk through an occupied unit, and what are you looking for?
Why ask it
A useful inspection is a short list checked the same way each time: under the sinks, around the windows, the alarms, signs of more people or pets than the lease names. The warning a tenant is owed before anyone enters is set locally, so ask how they give it. Never having found anything is not a clean record. It means the visits are too quick.
Have you had a fire, a break-in or a gas leak at a property you ran? What did you do in the week after?
Why ask it
The emergency is over in an hour, and the week that follows is where managers differ. A full account has the insurer being told, a written record made while memories were fresh, a visit to the tenants affected, and a fix for whatever let it happen. If they have been spared so far, ask what is on their emergency contact sheet and when it was last updated.
Owners and money
What do you do when an owner refuses a repair you believe is necessary?
Why ask it
The answer should separate what is the owner's choice (new carpet, a nicer kitchen) from what a landlord has to provide, such as heat, safe wiring and a roof that keeps the rain out. Where that line sits is a matter of local law, and a manager should know it for your area. For the second kind, see whether they would put the refusal and their own advice in writing.
Tell me about a mistake that cost an owner money.
Why ask it
Anyone who has done the job for a few years has one: a renewal date missed, a deduction that did not hold up, a contractor paid twice. A candidate with nothing to offer is either hiding it or has never been trusted with much. Spend your time on what they changed afterwards.
How do you build next year's budget for a property, and how close did the last one come?
Why ask it
A real budget starts from last year's invoices and the big items everyone can see coming, such as a boiler near the end of its life, and not from a percentage of rent. Missing is normal. What you are after is whether they can name the line that caused the miss without opening a laptop.
What goes in your monthly report to an owner, and what gets a phone call instead?
Why ask it
Rent due against rent collected, spending with the invoices behind it, vacancies and what is coming next month are the basics. The phone call half matters more, because bad news that first appears on page three of a statement has been hidden, however accurate the statement is. Request a sample with the names removed.
Where would you look first to make this property earn more without raising the rent?
Why ask it
There is a long list for anyone who has done it: empty days between tenants, service contracts nobody has requoted in years, a water bill that points to a leak, late rent that is never chased. Candidates who can only offer higher rent or less maintenance will improve one year's figures and cost you the next.
Who else sees the money you collect, and how often are the accounts reconciled?
Why ask it
Rent and deposits are other people's money, and many places have rules on where they are held and how fast a deposit is returned, so ask what applies to you. Whatever the rule, the person who banks the money should not be the only one who checks the statement. Take a relaxed answer here as a warning, however good the rest of the interview was.
How do you keep track of lease expiries, inspections, and registration renewals?
Why ask it
The system matters less than whether there is one they actually use. Ask what is due in the next thirty days across their current portfolio. Anyone on top of it can answer immediately.
If you are off sick for a week, who picks up your tenants' calls?
Why ask it
A named colleague who can open the files and approve a repair is a real answer. If it is nobody, every holiday they take is a stretch when your tenants reach a voicemail. Someone working alone can still be a good hire, so ask what arrangement they have made for exactly this.
What would you do in your first thirty days with this property?
Why ask it
The plain answers are the good ones: walk every unit, read every lease, meet the tenants, find out which repairs are waiting and which contracts are about to renew. Be cautious with a candidate who arrives with changes before they have seen the rent roll. Ask what they expect to have told you by the end of week four.
What kind of owner do you work best with?
Why ask it
They will describe the owner they wish they had: one who approves spending quickly, or stays out of the way, or picks up the phone. If you recognize yourself as the opposite, better to find that out now than in month three. A company hiring for a whole portfolio can ask which kind of owner they have found hardest.
What would you need from me for this to go well?
Why ask it
Strong candidates ask for a repair budget, a decision deadline, and clarity on what they may spend without calling. No requests at all usually means they intend to work around you, or have not thought about the arrangement as a working relationship.
For candidates
How many units would I be responsible for, and who else works on them?
Why ask it
The count means little without the support around it. Three hundred doors with a leasing agent, a maintenance coordinator and a bookkeeper is a different job from the same number carried alone. Find out what the last manager carried and whether the portfolio has grown since.
Why is the job open, and how long did the last two managers stay?
Why ask it
When a portfolio goes through a manager a year, the cause often sits in the buildings or with the owner, and it will still be there on your first day. A promotion or a retirement is a better sign. Whichever it was, ask what the last person would call the hardest part of the job.
How much can I spend on a repair before I need someone's approval?
Why ask it
This figure decides whether you can fix a tenant's problem the same day or have to explain a delay. Who approves above it, and how fast does that person answer on a Saturday? A limit so low that every leaking faucet needs sign-off tells you how much the employer trusts its managers.
Who takes the after-hours calls, and how is on-call time paid?
Why ask it
Night calls come with the work, but the rotation and the pay differ a great deal from one employer to the next. Overtime rules depend on where you work and how the role is classified, so ask how it is handled there. 'It hardly ever happens' is not an answer to either half.
What condition are the buildings in, and which repairs have been put off?
Why ask it
Deferred maintenance turns into your complaint log and your vacancy figures soon enough. Ask to walk one of the properties before you accept, including the boiler room and an empty unit if there is one. An employer who is proud of the buildings will find the time.
Which number would you want me to move first: vacancy, arrears or the repair backlog?
Why ask it
Whatever they pick is the real job description. Check that it is a number a manager can move, because an occupancy target means little if the owner sets the rent and will not fund repairs. If all three come back as the answer, ask which one the last manager was judged on.
When a manager and an owner disagree about a repair, whose side does the company take?
Why ask it
Sooner or later you will be caught between an owner who will not spend and a tenant with a fair complaint. Get the last real case and what the firm did about it. A company that once let a client go over an unsafe building will say so with some pride. If the interviewer is the owner, the way they take the question is your answer.
Does the company pay for licensing or training, and where have your managers gone on to?
Why ask it
Whether this work needs a license depends on where you are, and course and exam fees add up, so ask who pays and whether study time is given. The second half is the better test. A firm that can name an assistant who became a manager, or a manager who now runs a region, has a path. If every example left for a competitor, the path leads out.
How is the pay made up: salary, bonus, an apartment on site?
Why ask it
Pay in this field often comes in parts, and each part has strings attached. A leasing bonus can hang on occupancy you do not control, and an apartment on site can mean being findable at all hours. How housing is taxed and what happens to it if the job ends vary by place and employer, so get both answers in writing.
Running the interview
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to structure the conversation
Pick a few from each group
Nobody gets through the whole list in an hour. Take the opening group more or less whole, then two or three each from leasing, tenants, repairs and money, chosen for what your property needs most. A building with a vacancy problem and a building with a repair backlog call for different interviews.
Anchor everything in real cases
Ask for the last turnover, the last eviction, the last deposit dispute. "The last one" is harder to polish than "a time when," and the details can be checked when you call references.
Ask for their rent figure before you give yours
Once they know your number they will work around it. Their independent estimate, with comparables, is one of the better tests of local knowledge in the whole interview.
Give them a live scenario
Describe a real problem from your own property (a tenant two weeks late, a boiler at the end of its life) and ask what they would do this week. It tests judgment, where a general question only tests vocabulary.
Look at the paperwork they use
Ask to see a blank inspection report, a move-in checklist, and a sample owner statement. Documents reveal habits that answers do not.
If you are the candidate
The last group is yours. Ask about unit load, spending authority and after-hours cover before you ask about salary, because those three decide whether the job can be done well. Expect the rest of the list to come at you, so have your last turnover, your last eviction and your last deposit dispute ready with dates.
Reference calls that are worth making
- 1An owner who has worked with them for at least two years, asked how quickly bad news reaches them
- 2An owner who has left, asked what prompted it
- 3A contractor they use, asked how promptly invoices are paid and how work is inspected
- 4If possible, a current tenant, asked how long the last repair took
- 5For someone applying for a job, a former supervisor, asked which part of the work they would hand back to them tomorrow. Get the candidate's agreement before you ring a current employer
Where hiring goes wrong
Choosing on rent estimate
The highest projection is often the least grounded, and an over-priced listing can cost more in empty weeks than the extra rent would have earned. Ask for comparables and check two of them yourself.
Interviewing only about process
Anyone can describe screening and maintenance in general terms. The differences between candidates appear only in specific past cases with dates and numbers.
Ignoring how they talk about tenants
Contempt in the interview tends to show up later as turnover and complaints, and it can become a fair housing problem. Listen for whether tenants appear as people or as a category of nuisance.
Not settling authority in writing
The spending limit, the approval route, and the reporting rhythm should be agreed before the first month, not discovered during the first emergency.