The True Cost of Hiring Employees in Property Management: What the Numbers Really Show

Have you ever calculated what a single property manager actually costs your agency? Most principals I speak with focus on the base salary figure, but that number tells only part of the story. The true cost of hiring employees extends far beyond the advertised salary, and in property management, these hidden expenses can derail your growth plans faster than any market downturn.

Understanding the Full Cost of Hiring Employees

When I first started consulting with property management agencies over twenty years ago, I noticed a consistent pattern. Principals would budget for a new hire based on the salary figure, then find themselves financially stretched within months. The reason? They hadn’t accounted for the cascade of mandatory costs that come with every Australian employee.

Let me break down what a typical property manager position actually costs your business.

Base Salary: The Starting Point

According to SEEK and Indeed salary data, full-time property manager roles in Australia typically range from mid-$70,000 to mid-$80,000, with a national average of around $84,000. In high-cost metro markets like Sydney, average salaries are in the low-$90,000s, and experienced candidates often command packages of around $100,000. For this analysis, we’ll work with a mid-range figure of $80,000, which is conservative for anyone with more than two years’ experience.

Superannuation: The First Hidden Cost

The Australian Taxation Office mandates that employers contribute 11.5% of ordinary time earnings to superannuation for the 2024-25 financial year. This rate increases to 12% from July 2025.

On an $80,000 salary:

• Current super cost: $9,200 annually
• From July 2025: $9,600 annually

This is money that never appears on a payslip but absolutely appears in your accounting software.

Leave Entitlements: Paying for Non-Productive Time

Under the Fair Work Act 2009, full-time employees are entitled to:

• Annual Leave: Four weeks of annual leave represents 7.7% of their salary as an ongoing liability, that’s $6,160 on an $80,000 salary. During this time, you’re either paying someone else to cover their work or watching your service standards slip.
• Personal/Sick Leave: Ten days of sick leave annually equals approximately 3.8% of salary, or $3,040. The reality in property management is that stress-related absences often exceed this minimum entitlement.
• Long Service Leave: While this accrues over years, it represents a significant future liability that smart principals factor into their calculations from day one.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Every Australian employer must hold workers’ compensation insurance. According to industry data, the average premium rate sits at 1.73% of total wages, though this varies dramatically by state and industry classification.

For property management, which involves site visits, driving between properties, and considerable stress-related risk, premiums can exceed 2% of wages. On our $80,000 salary, that’s at least $1,600 annually, and potentially more.

Payroll Tax: The Threshold Trap

Payroll tax catches many growing agencies by surprise. Each state and territory sets its own thresholds and rates, and these change over time. As a guide, current annual payroll tax thresholds sit at roughly $1.0–$2.0 million, depending on the state or territory. For example:

• NSW has a $1.2 million threshold with a 5.45% rate on taxable wages.
• Queensland’s threshold is around $1.3 million with rates from 4.75–4.95%.
• Victoria’s threshold is moving to $1.0 million with a 4.85% rate. 

Always check your state revenue office or the national payroll tax summary before finalising your forecasts.

The Recruitment Costs Nobody Budgets For

Here’s where the numbers become truly sobering. The Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) puts the average cost to hire at $23,860 per candidate, with an average time-to-hire of 40 days. This figure has more than doubled from $10,500 in 2020.

What Makes Up Recruitment Costs?

• Agency Fees: Most recruitment agencies charge 15-20% of the first-year salary for contingency placements. On an $80,000 property manager, that’s $12,000-$16,000, before the person even starts.
• Advertising: Job board listings, social media promotion, and employer branding campaigns add up quickly. A premium SEEK listing can cost several hundred dollars per week.
• Internal Time: Every hour your operations manager or principal spends reviewing applications, conducting interviews, and checking references is time not spent on revenue-generating activities. Research suggests this management time costs approximately $880 per hire.
• Onboarding and Training: A new property manager typically takes three to six months to reach full productivity. During this period, you’re paying full salary while receiving partial output. In my experience, most new hires aren’t truly contributing at full capacity until month four at the earliest.

The Hidden Killer: Staff Turnover in Property Management

This is the statistic that should concern every agency principal: Real Estate Business reports that the real estate industry experienced a 25% staff turnover rate in 2023. Property management specifically bears the brunt of this churn.

According to the 2025 Placed Australia Salary Guide, experienced property managers with two or more years’ experience are the second most challenging role to fill in real estate, second only to commission-only sales agents. The guide also notes “high churn in admin and leasing roles” is driving salaries up across the board.

Gough Recruitment’s industry analysis describes a “mass exodus” of property managers from the industry. The contributing factors they identify mirror what I see daily:

• Balancing landlord financial strain against tenant pressures
• Complex and ever-changing legislative requirements
• High workloads leading to burnout
• Limited flexibility in traditional portfolio models

The True Cost of Turnover

Industry research shows that replacing an employee is expensive. AHRI cites SHRM estimates that replacing a mid-level employee costs around 20% of their annual wage, with much higher percentages for senior roles. Australian HR consultancies report that, once you factor in lost productivity, management time and lost knowledge, the total cost of turnover typically sits between 50% and 150% of annual remuneration, especially for specialist roles like experienced property managers.

Let me translate that into real numbers. If you lose a property manager earning $80,000 a year, a conservative estimate is that turnover will cost somewhere between $40,000 and $120,000. That can include:

• Recruitment fees
• Advertising the role
• Onboarding and training
• Productivity loss while the new hire gets up to speed

Lost institutional knowledge, including understanding which owners need extra communication, which tradies are reliable, and which properties have recurring issues.

Adding It All Up: The Real Cost of Hiring Employees

Based on current statutory on-costs and typical insurance loadings, an $80,000 property manager looks like this:

In other words, the true ongoing cost remains roughly 1.3–1.5 times the base salary, depending on your payroll tax position and your award or enterprise agreement.

Why Traditional Hiring Models Fail Property Management

In my book, From Stress to Success in Property Management, I discuss how property managers often work reactively, constantly putting out fires instead of following a plan. I’ve observed this same pattern in how agencies approach staffing.

The fundamental problem is this: traditional employment creates fixed costs regardless of blueprint. You pay the same whether you’re managing 100 properties or experiencing a slow month after several owners sell. You carry the same overhead whether your property manager is processing lease renewals efficiently or spending hours on tasks that could be systematised.

The agencies I work with that achieve sustainable growth have shifted their thinking. Instead of asking “How much does an employee cost?”, they ask “What’s the cost per task completed well?”

A Different Approach: Systematic Outsourcing

When I work with property management agencies, I help them identify which tasks genuinely require local presence and which can be handled more efficiently through systematic outsourcing.

Consider what a typical property manager’s day actually involves:

• Processing applications and conducting reference checks
• Preparing and executing lease agreements
• Managing routine inspection administration
• Coordinating maintenance requests
• Handling arrears follow-up
• Processing invoices and bills

A significant portion of this work follows repeatable processes. When these tasks are performed by trained specialists following documented systems, the quality often exceeds what an overworked, multitasking property manager can deliver.

I’ve worked with hundreds of agencies to implement virtual assistant services that handle these administrative functions. The results consistently show both cost savings and improved service delivery.

The Zero Downtime Difference

One of the biggest risks with traditional employment is single points of failure. When your property manager calls in sick on a busy day, tasks stack up, clients wait longer, and your team scrambles to cover. I addressed this challenge by developing our Zero Downtime Guarantee, if your dedicated virtual assistant is unavailable, a trained backup seamlessly continues your workflows.

Eliminating Recruitment Risk

Perhaps most importantly, working with an Employer of Record model like ours eliminates the recruitment risk that plagues property management agencies. We handle the recruitment, training, and, if necessary, replacement of virtual assistants. The 25% turnover rate that devastates traditional staffing models becomes our problem to solve, not yours.

Real Results: What Systematic Outsourcing Achieves

I recently worked with Sarah, Head of Property Management for a large Canberra agency, who was struggling with exactly the challenges I’ve outlined above. As she explained to me, “Everyone had their own way of doing things, which led to inconsistencies. With frequent turnover in property management, this created constant challenges for our team.”

After implementing our systems, the transformation was immediate. Sarah told me, “With PMVA, we have a consistent process, and I have peace of mind knowing where everything is and that important tasks are being handled.” Her agency went on to achieve two record months for new leases.

I’ve seen similar results with Rheanna, Head of Property Management for a Perth-based agency. Her team was caught in a cycle of reactive task management that left little time for meaningful client interactions. After partnering with us, she reported, “It has created more time for our property managers to spend with clients, which was our main goal. Our customers are much more satisfied because our team simply has more time to spend with them.”

Calculating Your True Staffing ROI

Before your next hire, I encourage you to work through this calculation:

1. Document the actual tasks the position will handle
2. Identify which tasks can be systematised and completed remotely
3. Calculate the true cost including all on-costs and turnover risk
4. Compare against outsourcing models that offer fixed, predictable pricing

For many agencies, the mathematics clearly favour a hybrid approach: retain local property managers for relationship-building and site visits, while outsourcing administrative tasks to trained specialists who follow documented systems.

The Path Forward: Building a Sustainable Team Structure

The property management industry is evolving rapidly. According to IBISWorld, the real estate services industry totals $30.9 billion in revenue for 2024-25, with property management representing a significant portion. With 80% of agencies focused on property management growth, competition for quality staff will only intensify.

The agencies that thrive will be those that approach staffing strategically rather than reactively. They’ll understand the true cost of hiring employees and build team structures that combine the best of local expertise with systematic, scalable support services.

My approach has always been grounded in systems thinking. When you understand the full picture, base salary, on-costs, recruitment expenses, turnover risk, and opportunity cost, you can make hiring decisions that genuinely support sustainable growth rather than creating financial strain.

Frequently Asked Questions

Transform Your Approach to Team Building

The cost of hiring employees in property management is substantial, but seeing the full picture of salary, on costs, recruitment and turnover gives you control instead of uncertainty. Agencies that thrive rethink headcount, keeping local experts focused on relationships while systematising the rest of the work through scalable support. By combining your in-house team with premium virtual assistants who follow proven processes, you can deliver better service at a lower and more predictable cost base. If you’re ready to explore this approach, start by learning how premium virtual assistants for real estate can integrate with your current structure and reduce your staffing risk.