The Scariest Thing on Your Property? An Open Position.
Forget the creaky stairwell and the flickering light in Building C. This season, what should really give property managers chills is much quieter. It's the empty chair in the leasing office, an unassigned work order, and the groundskeeping shift nobody's covering.
An open position doesn't jump out at you. It creeps. And by the time you notice, it's already haunting every corner of your property.
A Haunting Open Position
It Starts Small
One leasing agent gives notice. No big deal, right? The rest of the team can pick up the slack for a couple of weeks.
Then a couple of weeks turns into a couple of months. Tours get rushed. Follow-up calls slip. The assistant manager starts answering the leasing line between budget meetings, and the maintenance supervisor is suddenly the one checking in packages. A prospect who was ready to sign on Friday wanders off to the community down the street. Nobody screamed, but you just lost a lease.
The Ripple Effect is Real
Open roles rarely stay contained. Here’s how the spookiness spreads:
Work orders pile up. When you’re short a maintenance tech, response times stretch, and residents notice fast. A dripping faucet today becomes a frustrated phone call next week.
Reviews take a hit. Slow service and missed callbacks show up online, where future residents are reading. One bad month of reviews can follow a property for a long time.
Your best people burn out. The team members covering the gap are often your strongest. Push them too long, and you risk a second open position.
Renewals get shaky. Residents who feel ignored are a lot less likely to sign again, and replacing a resident almost always costs more than keeping one.
One vacancy can quietly turn into lost leases, lower occupancy, and a team running on fumes.
Why It's Extra Scary Right Now
The end of the year is a tricky time to be short-staffed. Weather shifts bring a wave of HVAC and plumbing calls. Holiday schedules mean more PTO requests. Year-end budgets and owner reports pile on top of everything else. And many candidates hit pause on their job search until January.
Translation: if you’re waiting for the perfect hire to show up on their own, you could be waiting a while. And every week that chair sits empty, the workload lands on someone else’s desk.
How to Break the Curse
Good news! Open positions are scary, but they’re very fixable. A few moves that help:
Plan for gaps before they happen. Know which roles are hardest to fill on your properties and keep a pipeline warm. The time to find your next maintenance tech is before your current one gives notice.
Use temporary coverage. A skilled temp can keep tours moving and work orders closing while you find the right long-term fit. It buys you time to hire well instead of hiring fast.
Try temp-to-hire. Get to know someone on the job before making it official. It’s a low-risk way to find a keeper, and they get to know your community too.
Lean on industry specialists. Property management is its own world. People who already know leasing software, make-ready turns, and Fair Housing basics hit the ground running with less training.
Take care of the team you have. Recognize the folks covering extra shifts, and make sure they know relief is on the way. A little appreciation goes a long way when people are stretched thin.
Don’t Let the Empty Chair Win
The scariest thing about an open position isn’t the vacancy itself. It’s how long it lingers and how much it quietly costs before anyone sounds the alarm. The good news is you don’t have to wait for the perfect candidate to wander in. With a plan for coverage and a partner who knows property management inside and out, you can keep your community running smoothly while you find the right person for the long haul.
At BG Staffing, filling property management roles is all we do. For more than 30 years, we've connected multifamily and commercial properties across the US with leasing agents, maintenance technicians, groundskeepers, and on-site managers who are ready to work. So turn on the lights and put the empty chair back to work. Let's fill that position.
Comments