Should Property Managers Get Paid When Your Property is Vacant?

By Brian Bean | September 20, 2025

Should Property Managers Get Paid When Your Property is Vacant?

Part 4 of 8-Part Series on Service Guarantees

By Brian Bean, Dream Big Property Management

Does your property manager get paid when your property is vacant? Whether the answer is yes or no, the real question is, “Should they?” Because the real answer will affect your bottom line.

How Do You Know If Your Property Manager Is Doing a Good Job?

How do you know if your property manager is doing a good job? Most of the work is behind-the-scenes stuff that, believe me, you don’t even WANT to know about. But that makes it difficult to understand just what goes into the actual day-to-day tasks that come with running your rental property business. And that’s what we’re really doing. They call us property managers, but we’re really BUSINESS managers, and we’re running your business on your behalf.

And so how do you know if we’re doing a good job? Well, the most obvious way is the same for all businesses – how are the numbers? Whether your business is on Wall Street or Main Street, they all have financial outcomes that can easily be tracked on something as basic as a spreadsheet or even a paper ledger.

What do the Numbers Say?

Let’s say you owned a retail business and you hired a manager to run it and they are being paid a salary, regardless of results. If the manager priced all the products too high or only opened the store for one hour per day, and your sales suffered because of it, you’d probably be making a change in management.

So following that thought, you hired a property manager to oversee your rental property, but it has been vacant for four months with no applicants. And even though there is no rent revenue coming in, the property manager is being paid a monthly fee, because, you know, the property IS being managed – several of those behind-the-scenes tasks that you don’t see but are nonetheless required, are being performed, at a cost to the property management company.

The Perception Problem and Trust Issues

And this is the problem. Not the optics, but the perception. It’s less about how it looks and more about how it feels … the sentiment created in your mind about the property manager’s performance and the resulting effects on your wallet. It quite simply can look like the property manager’s interests are not aligned with your interests. And even if you don’t overtly decide that you don’t trust them,  in your subconscious, the trust meter is dropping.

The Industry Perspective

And so should property managers be paid a monthly management fee even if the property is not rented? Or if the renter is not paying rent? I would never criticize a property management company for charging a monthly fee in that situation, because there truly is work being done. There may be trips to the property for inspections, maintenance oversight, or dealing with security, chasing late rent. They may even be paying bills on your behalf. All the stuff that you don’t see, but it’s getting done.

They have every right to be paid for their work.

We just choose not to charge our investors in those situations.

Not because WE don’t deserve it. But because our clients DO. And, more importantly, because it communicates that our interests are aligned with our clients’.

Our Performance Guarantee: Two-Part Accountability

We call it our Performance Guarantee, and it has two main components to keep us accountable.

1. If the rent doesn’t come in, we don’t get paid either.

2. If we don’t lease your home within 30 days at OUR prescribed price, we’ll credit you for a month’s management fee against future charges.

This keeps us focused on three goals:

  • Getting your property leased quickly at the right price
  • Responding rapidly if rent is late, and constructively working with residents to find ways for them to get current
  • Putting the right people in your home so that rent gets paid and vacancy is reduced

This is 100 percent alignment of interests with our property owners.

Real-World Application

We deal with this issue each and every month. This is not some one-off occurrence during a blood moon.

And sometimes, it takes extra time to rent a property. It could be the current economy. It could be some unique characteristic of the property (backs to a busy highway). Heck, Cousin Eddie might be living across the street.

In those situations, if the owner isn’t getting paid, we’re not getting paid. Everyone’s in the same boat. And that gives us an even bigger incentive to work hard to fill vacancies with great residents.

Systems and Standards

It’s easy for someone to say, “I guarantee … (insert pithy promise here).” But if you’re not all in with the people, attitudes, and systems required to actually support your promises, it’s just lip service.

Three of our five core values, however, directly apply here:

  1. Live in the Truth: Do what you say you’re going to do.
  2. Own the Outcome: Take responsibility for your actions and solve problems when necessary.
  3. Treat People Right: The way to reduce vacancy is to provide an environment where tenants feel safe, heard, and respected.

CHECK OUT OUR CORE VALUES HERE …

And so here are some standards and processes that help us keep rents flowing each and every month:

Make it Attractive

On vacant homes, we hire professional photographers who provide high-quality images and virtual tours and floorplans of each of our properties. Our staff has marketing and writing experience and knows how to sell the lifestyle of a property with the written description. And we blast all of this out on all major websites where most applicants are looking.

Price it Right

Marketing is obviously important. But price is more than half of that battle. We’ve comped out thousands and thousands of properties in the last 20-plus years. Zillow and other automated valuation sites are often wrong. If you price the home wrong, you’re losing $100 per day on a $3,000/mo rental. And that loss is hard to recoup.

Pick a Great Resident

We use the latest technology to screen rental applicants. Credit and background checks, of course, but also document-fraud detection. I’ve seen some studies that indicate 1 in 8 applicants submits fake paystubs on a rental application. You have to be ahead of the shenanigans in this business. We also contact ALL employment and past-landlord references, as this will reveal a lot about a candidate’s behavior.

Keep Residents Happy

After you find a great tenant, you want to KEEP them. That means making efforts to ensure their home remains a great place to live. We jump on maintenance requests quickly and fix problems as soon as possible. Statistics show that maintenance delays are the No. 1 reason residents choose not to renew a lease. And non-renewal means vacancy and lost profitability.

Late Rent Response

When a resident is late with rent, we can’t just send a friendly reminder and hope for the best. We are proactive but not from a dictatorial or finger-thumping-chest mindset. We approach residents with questions about how we can assist them with THEIR obligations, and when necessary, we will jump in and help them seek public aid. Turning your residents into adversaries will not be productive.

The Business Transformation Effect

OUR Performance Guarantee is a reflection of our efforts as ADVOCATES for our investor clients, which has influenced our entire BUSINESS. How we market vacant homes, how we handle maintenance, how we communicate with our residents, and even which investors we choose to work with.

But, for many, the question remains: Should your property manager be charging you when the home is vacant?

Maybe…

But for our clients, it really doesn’t matter.

Have questions about our Performance Guarantee or any of our other service guarantees? Call Brian Bean directly at 951-314-5402.

About the Author: Brian Bean is the Founder of Dream Big Property Management, serving rental property investors throughout the Inland Empire of Southern California. With over 20 years of experience, Brian specializes in helping investors build wealth using the 5 Profit Centers of Real Estate.

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