Tenant placement only or full management: which one your rental actually needs

The difference comes down to who carries the lease

Tenant placement, also called lease-up or leasing only, covers pricing, marketing, showings, screening, the lease and move-in, then hands the property back to you. Full management does the same work and then stays for the length of the lease: rent collection, maintenance, inspections, renewals, the move-out deposit accounting and your statements. Choose placement if you live nearby, have reliable vendors and will enforce the lease consistently. Choose full management if you are out of town, short on time, or would rather pay for a system than learn the Texas rules yourself.

We offer both at Perpetual Property Management, and owners ask me which one is right almost every week. My honest answer is that the fee is the wrong place to start. Start with what happens after the tenant moves in, because that is the part placement leaves to you.

What a leasing-only service actually covers

Placement is the front end of the tenancy, and it is the part where professional systems pay off quickly. A well-run lease-up gets the rent right, gets the home in front of the right people fast, and produces a file you can rely on if anything goes wrong later. It is also the stage where an owner's inexperience costs the most, because a weak tenant cannot be screened out after the lease is signed.

• Setting the rent from leased comparables
• Photographing and listing the home, and syndicating the listing
• Answering inquiries and running showings
• Screening every adult applicant against written criteria
• Preparing and signing the lease with the right addenda
• Collecting the security deposit and first month's rent
• Documenting the move-in condition with photos

What stays on your plate after move-in

This is the list owners tend to underestimate. On placement, the tenant has your phone number, and every one of these is yours from the day they get the keys. Tenants also call about things that are not maintenance at all, like an HOA letter, a neighbor dispute or a question about trash day. None of this is difficult on a good month. The work is in doing it on time, every time, and in keeping the paper trail a court or a deposit dispute would expect.

• Collecting and tracking rent, and following the Texas notice sequence when it is late
• Taking every maintenance call, deciding what is an emergency, and finding and paying vendors
• Inspecting the home during the lease and documenting what you find
• Handling the renewal: checking the market, negotiating and preparing the paperwork
• Running move-out, itemizing deposit deductions on the Texas deadline and defending them if disputed
• Keeping records of payments, notices, invoices and conversations
• Producing year-end figures for your tax preparer

Owners who do well with placement only

Placement suits a particular kind of owner, and I am happy to recommend it when it fits. The owner who does well with it usually lives close enough to see the house, can be reached during the day, and has a plumber, an electrician and an HVAC company they already trust. They can look at a repair invoice and know whether it is fair. They understand, or are willing to learn, Texas notice requirements, deposit deadlines and fair-housing rules. And critically, they will enforce the lease the same way every month, including charging the late fee when the lease says to. They also have a plan for the weeks they are away, because a tenant with a broken air conditioner in August will not wait for you to get home.

Often this is someone with one house who treats it as a hands-on project and enjoys it. If that is you, a professional lease-up gives you a strong start and leaves you in control. Good screening is the piece most worth paying for; our guide on screening a tenant yourself in Texas shows what is involved if you are tempted to do that part too.

Owners who are better served by full management

Full management suits owners who live out of the area or travel often, people with demanding jobs, and anyone who inherited a house or converted a former home and never planned to become a landlord. It also suits investors growing past one or two properties, who need the same system on every house, and former self-managers who discovered that one repair dispute, one late-paying tenant or one contested deposit cost more than a year of fees.

If you are about to move and keep your current home as a rental, read what it takes to price, lease and manage a house you are leaving. Distance is the single most reliable predictor I know of. An owner three states away cannot meet a plumber, check a leak or walk the house before a renewal, and every one of those becomes a favor or a guess. Full management replaces those favors with a named contact, a spending limit you set and a report with photos.

A five-question test before you decide

Answer these honestly. If you hesitate on three or more, full management is probably the better fit. If you can answer all five with confidence, placement may be all you need.

• If the tenant calls at midnight about water on the floor, do I know exactly who I will call?
• Will I charge the late fee on the day the lease allows, every month, to every tenant?
• Do I know the Texas deposit deadline and what the itemized list must include?
• Can I inspect the house in the first month and again in month nine?
• If I am traveling, who handles all of it?

Questions to ask a leasing-only service before you hire it

Not every placement service hands you the same thing at the end. Because you will own the tenancy from move-in onward, the quality of the file you receive matters as much as the speed of the lease-up. Ask these before you sign, and get the answers in writing.

Pay particular attention to any guarantee. Some protections, including our own written guarantees, apply to homes under an active management agreement, so ask exactly what is and is not covered if you choose placement only.

• Will you show me the written screening criteria, and will I see the approval reasoning for the tenant you choose?
• Who signs the lease, and which addenda are included for my house, such as HOA rules, pets or a pool?
• Who holds the security deposit after move-in, and how is it transferred to me?
• What exactly is in the file I receive: application, screening results, lease, move-in photos and condition report?
• If I switch to full management later, is any part of the leasing fee credited?

What choosing wrong costs, in either direction

The two mistakes are not equal. If you choose placement when you needed management, the cost is open-ended: extra vacancy from a renewal handled too late, larger repair bills from maintenance put off, late fees never collected, or a deposit dispute lost because nobody documented move-out. Texas gives a landlord 30 days after the tenant surrenders the home to return the deposit or itemize deductions, and TexasLawHelp notes that a landlord cannot deduct for normal wear and tear. Any one of those mistakes can cost more than a year of management fees.

If you choose full management when you wanted to self-manage, the cost is the fee, plus the irritation of paying for work you could have done. That cost is bounded and visible. You can see it on your statement, and you can change your mind at renewal. When owners are genuinely unsure, I usually suggest starting with full management on the first lease and deciding later with real experience.

How the fees compare

Placement is usually a one-time fee tied to the new lease. Full management is an ongoing monthly fee plus a leasing fee when a tenant is placed. On our plans, management runs from 7 to 10 percent of monthly rent and tenant placement from 50 to 75 percent of one month's rent, depending on the plan; a leasing-only engagement is quoted in writing for your specific house. Our breakdown of what a property manager costs, fee by fee covers every line.

Comparing the headline numbers is misleading, because the real difference lies in what happens during the lease. Put the complete written fee schedules side by side, then estimate what a single vacant month, a late renewal or a lost deposit dispute would cost you on your own. That comparison is the honest one. Most owners find the decision makes itself once those numbers are on paper.

Starting with one and switching to the other

You are not locked in. Owners often start with placement and move to full management mid-lease after a job change, a move, or a serious maintenance emergency. Because placement leaves us with the lease, the screening file, the move-in inspection and the deposit record, the switch is straightforward: we introduce the tenant to the new payment process, take over maintenance and start monthly statements. Ask any company how that switch works and whether any leasing fee already paid is credited.

Whichever you choose, the obligations Texas places on landlords stay the same, and our guide to Texas landlord rules on deposits, repairs and locks is worth reading either way. We serve owners in Keller, North Richland Hills, Fort Worth and the rest of Tarrant County. Start with the free rental analysis, tell us which option you are leaning toward, and we will give you both quotes in writing so you can decide with the numbers in front of you.

Questions people ask me