Written by
Emma Collins
Published on
Jan 27, 2026
Every letting agent hits the same ceiling. You're managing 40, 50, maybe 60 properties and things feel manageable. Then you take on another batch of landlords and suddenly everything starts to strain. The phone doesn't stop. Emails pile up. Your team works late just to stay afloat.
The obvious answer is to hire. But hiring creates its own problems: recruitment costs, training time, salary overhead, and the uncomfortable maths of how many extra properties you need just to cover a new salary. Grow too fast with the wrong model and your margins disappear.
The agencies that scale successfully don't just add headcount proportionally. They fundamentally change how work gets done. Here's how they do it.
The maths of property management time
Industry data suggests property managers spend roughly 4 hours per month per property on ongoing management tasks. That's not including tenancy setup, inspections, or one-off projects — just the steady-state work of keeping things running.
At 100 properties, that's 400 hours per month. Assuming a 160-hour work month, you need 2.5 full-time staff just to maintain the portfolio — before anyone does anything strategic like winning new business or improving landlord relationships.
The question isn't whether you can afford to hire. It's whether hiring is even the right solution.
Where does all that time actually go?
When agencies audit their time (and most don't), maintenance coordination consistently emerges as the single biggest category. It typically accounts for 30-40% of a property manager's working hours.
This includes:
Taking initial calls and emails from tenants
Asking follow-up questions to understand what's actually wrong
Triaging issues and deciding on urgency
Finding and instructing contractors
Coordinating access between tenants and tradespeople
Chasing contractors for updates
Updating landlords on progress
Documenting everything for the file
Each individual task takes 5-15 minutes. But multiply that across 3-4 maintenance issues per property per month, across a portfolio of 100+ properties, and you're looking at a full-time role just on maintenance admin.
The rest of the time splits across tenant communications, landlord updates, compliance admin, rent collection, and inspections. But maintenance is almost always the dominant category — and the one with the most potential for improvement.
Three levers for scaling without hiring
Agencies that successfully grow beyond 100 properties without proportionally increasing headcount typically pull three levers.
Lever 1: Automate repetitive tasks
Some tasks happen the same way every time. These are prime candidates for automation:
Rent collection and arrears chasing. Automated payment reminders, direct debit setup, and escalation workflows mean your team only gets involved when something genuinely needs attention.
Certificate renewal tracking. Gas safety certificates, EICRs, and EPCs all have expiry dates. Automated reminders 8 weeks, 4 weeks, and 2 weeks before expiry — with contractor booking links — prevent compliance from slipping through cracks.
Routine tenant communications. Move-in information, inspection scheduling, and periodic tenancy updates can all be templated and triggered automatically.
Maintenance intake and triage. Instead of a phone call that requires someone to answer, let tenants report issues through channels they already use — like WhatsApp or email. AI can handle the back-and-forth conversation, ask the right follow-up questions, and gather photos and details without your team lifting a finger.
Lever 2: Enable tenant self-service
A significant portion of tenant contact is either information-seeking ("how do I report a repair?") or issue-reporting that could be handled more efficiently.
Self-service doesn't mean leaving tenants to fend for themselves. It means giving them tools to:
Report issues on their terms. Tenants can describe problems, share photos, and provide access details at 10pm on a Sunday — through a quick WhatsApp message rather than waiting until your office opens Monday morning.
Resolve simple issues themselves. Many maintenance calls are for problems tenants can actually fix: resetting a tripped RCD, represurising a boiler, or checking whether the issue is with their energy supply rather than the property. AI-powered guidance can walk tenants through these checks conversationally, saving a contractor visit and a chunk of your team's time.
Get updates without chasing. If tenants can see the status of their repair request, they don't need to call asking what's happening.
The agencies managing 150+ properties per person have figured out that every tenant interaction you can eliminate or streamline compounds across the portfolio.
Lever 3: Standardise processes
When every property manager handles things their own way, you can't scale. Knowledge sits in people's heads, quality varies, and training new staff takes months.
Standardisation means:
Documented workflows for common scenarios. What happens when a tenant reports no hot water? What's the escalation path for an emergency? How do you handle a landlord who's slow to approve repairs? Write it down once, follow it every time.
Consistent triage criteria. Not everything is urgent. Having a clear framework for classifying emergency vs routine repairs means your team makes faster decisions and can justify those decisions to landlords and tenants.
Templates for every communication type. Acknowledgment emails, contractor instructions, landlord updates, tenant guidance — if you're writing it more than twice, template it.
Process standardisation has a multiplier effect. It makes existing staff more efficient, reduces errors, speeds up training, and makes the business less dependent on any individual.
What high-volume agencies do differently
Agencies managing 200, 500, or 1,000+ properties operate fundamentally differently from smaller operations. Common patterns include:
Specialist roles instead of generalist property managers. Rather than one person handling everything for "their" properties, tasks are split by function: one team handles maintenance, another handles inspections, another handles tenant queries. This allows for deeper expertise and more efficient processing.
Centralised maintenance coordination. A dedicated maintenance hub — whether a person, team, or AI-powered system — handles all contractor liaison. Property managers focus on landlord relationships and complex issues.
Contractor networks with agreed SLAs. Instead of finding a plumber for each job, high-volume agencies have pre-vetted contractors with agreed response times and pricing. Jobs get dispatched instantly based on location, trade, and availability.
Technology as infrastructure, not afterthought. Property management software isn't just for record-keeping. It's the operational backbone that enables everything else: automated workflows, intelligent tenant communication, contractor management, and reporting.
The hidden cost of not scaling efficiently
Failing to solve the scaling problem doesn't just limit growth. It actively damages the business:
Staff burnout and turnover. Overworked property managers leave. Recruitment and training costs compound, and institutional knowledge walks out the door.
Declining service quality. When your team is stretched, response times slip. Tenants complain. Landlords notice. Eventually, they leave too.
Compliance gaps. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 and Awaab's Law are raising the bar on response times and documentation. An overwhelmed team is a compliance risk.
Opportunity cost. Every hour spent on low-value admin is an hour not spent on winning new landlords, improving tenant retention, or building the business.
Starting the transition
You don't need to transform everything at once. Start with the highest-impact changes:
Audit where time actually goes. Track tasks for two weeks. The results will probably surprise you. Most agencies find maintenance coordination dominates.
Identify the 20% of tasks consuming 80% of time. For most agencies, this is maintenance coordination. That's where automation and process improvement will have the biggest impact.
Prioritise by impact, not complexity. Some changes are easy wins (templates, basic automation). Others require more investment (new software, process redesign). Start with the quick wins to build momentum.
Measure before and after. Track time spent, response times, and error rates before making changes. Then measure again afterwards. Data makes the case for further investment.
Scaling is a choice
There's nothing wrong with staying small. Some agencies deliberately limit their portfolio to maintain service quality and work-life balance.
But if you want to grow — if you want to manage 100, 200, or 500 properties — you can't do it by working harder. You have to work differently.
The agencies that scale successfully treat efficiency as a strategic priority, not an afterthought. They invest in systems, automate the repetitive, and free their people to focus on work that actually requires human judgment.
Lanten automates the maintenance workflow that typically consumes 30-40% of property management time. Tenants report issues via WhatsApp or email. AI handles triage, provides troubleshooting guidance, and coordinates contractors — with everything documented automatically.
