If you’ve tried to recruit a Property Manager recently, you’ve probably asked the same question. Where are they?

You advertise the role. The salary looks competitive. The applications come in. But very few are from experienced Property Managers who could step straight into the job.

The candidates haven’t disappeared. The problem is that most of the good ones are already working, and many of them aren’t actively searching job boards at all. Recent industry data reported more than 5,300 vacant Property Manager roles across Australia, highlighting the scale of the workforce shortage with some states advertising senior positions at close to six figures just to try and fill them. The problem isn’t necessarily candidate quality. It’s increasingly a candidate visibility problem, and it changes what recruitment actually needs to look like.

As recruiters who work across real estate and property roles, we’ve spoken to hundreds of Property Managers over the years, helping many of them move into a better role. Along the way, we’ve picked up a fairly clear read on what it actually takes to get someone to consider moving.

 

Why Experienced Property Managers May Not Be Applying

One of the biggest mistakes employers make is assuming the best candidate will see the ad and apply. Often, they won’t.

A good Property Manager might be unhappy in their current role, but not unhappy enough to be scrolling job boards every night. They might think about moving, but they’re not yet doing anything about it. These candidates are effectively invisible to a traditional job ad. They only become visible once someone approaches them directly.

That’s what’s changing in this market. It’s no longer enough to post a role and wait for applications to arrive. Finding a genuinely strong Property Manager increasingly means identifying people who are already doing the job well somewhere else, and starting a real conversation with them. [LINK SPOT 2 — “even when applications do come in, getting a response is its own challenge”] That’s a different skill set to running a job ad, and it’s a big part of why so many businesses hiring for themselves get stuck at this exact stage.

 

What Actually Makes a Good Property Manager Move

Experienced Property Managers usually have options. If someone is already earning a reasonable salary and managing a portfolio, offering them another job paying roughly the same amount is rarely enough on its own to make them move. The real question isn’t “will they apply.” It’s “what would actually make them leave.”

It’s no secret why good Property Managers start looking elsewhere, though it’s often an improvement across more than one of these that’s needed before someone will genuinely consider a change: salary, portfolio size, a lack of administrative support, too many inspections, poor systems, difficult management, unrealistic expectations, a lack of flexibility, or plain burnout.

This is where a genuine understanding of the role matters as much as access to candidates. Knowing which of those things actually matters to a specific person, rather than assuming salary alone will do it, is usually the difference between a candidate saying “maybe” and a candidate saying “yes.”

 

Sell the Conditions, Not Just the Position

Employers need to sell the working conditions, not just the job title. “Great culture” and “supportive team” don’t tell a candidate anything real, and experienced Property Managers have read that exact phrase a hundred times before.

What they actually want to know is far more specific. How many properties are in the portfolio? Who handles routine inspections and condition reports? Is there leasing support? Can they work from home some of the week? What actually happens when a landlord or tenant becomes difficult?

A line like “manage a capped portfolio of 95 properties with dedicated leasing and administration support” does more work than “join our amazing team” ever will. It tells a candidate exactly what their week would look like, and for someone who’s already burnt out managing 200 properties with no support, that specificity is often what gets them to actually pick up the phone.

 

Look Beyond the Obvious Candidate Pool

It’s also worth looking past experienced Property Managers entirely. Assistant Property Managers, Inspection Officers, Junior Property Managers, and Property Management Administrators are often closer to ready than employers assume.

A strong junior candidate with good communication skills, resilience, and solid organisation can often grow into an excellent Property Manager with the right support around them. For a lot of businesses, that can be a more realistic strategy than competing for the same small pool of experienced Property Managers. Identifying who in that broader pool is actually ready to step up, though, takes more than a job ad too. It takes the same kind of direct, one-on-one approach as reaching an experienced PM who isn’t actively looking.

 

Sometimes the Job Is the Problem

There’s also an uncomfortable truth worth sitting with. If you’re offering a large portfolio, limited support, every inspection under the sun, no flexibility, and a salary at the lower end of the market, the shortage might not be your real problem. The market may simply be telling you the role itself isn’t attractive enough yet.

Sometimes the fix isn’t finding a better candidate. It’s redesigning the role: reducing the portfolio, adding support, outsourcing inspections, improving flexibility, or reviewing the salary against what’s actually being paid elsewhere right now.

 

The Property Managers Are Still There

The good Property Managers haven’t disappeared. They’re already employed, more selective than they used to be, and harder to reach with a standard job ad. For Perth agencies competing for experienced Property Managers, that makes traditional advertising an increasingly limited way of accessing the market. Successful recruitment for this role now takes more than posting a vacancy and waiting to see who applies. It means approaching people directly, understanding what would genuinely make them move, developing junior talent already in the pipeline, and shaping a role attractive enough that someone who wasn’t even looking suddenly thinks, actually, I’d consider that.

More on hiring and recruitment: Which Psychometric Test Should You Use For Recruitment? 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it so difficult to recruit Property Managers?

Most experienced Property Managers are already employed and aren’t actively job hunting. A job ad only reaches people who are actively looking, which is a small slice of the real talent pool.

Do experienced Property Managers apply for advertised jobs?

Rarely. Someone who’s reasonably settled, or simply busy, isn’t scrolling job boards, even if they’d consider the right opportunity if it came to them directly.

How do you recruit passive Property Manager candidates?

By identifying who’s already doing the job well elsewhere and reaching out directly, then understanding what would genuinely make them move, portfolio size, support, or flexibility, rather than assuming salary alone will do it.

Should Real Estate agencies use a recruitment agency to find Property Managers?

For roles where suitable candidates aren’t actively applying, a specialist recruitment agency can reach people a job advertisement may never reach.

 

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