By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
Every week someone asks me a version of the same question: “I only have one rental. Is a property manager really worth it?” It is one of the most common questions on landlord forums, and most of the answers you will find are written by people who have never managed anything for a living.
I have been in property management in Kingston since 2003. KEILTY manages everything from single condo units to apartment communities, and some of our most loyal clients own exactly one property. So here is my answer, including the part most property managers will not tell you: sometimes the right answer is no.
If you live far from your rental, cannot be the person who answers the 2 a.m. call, or have never been through a tenancy problem in Ontario, hiring a property manager for one rental usually makes sense. If the rent barely covers your carrying costs, it may not, at least not until you fix the numbers.
The rest of this post explains how to tell which group you are in.
The single-property owners who reach out to KEILTY are rarely brand new investors. Most of them have been self-managing for a while and something in their life has changed. A new job in another city. A move to be closer to family. A second child. A business that now takes every evening.
Being a landlord from down the street is very different from being a landlord from three hours away. When you lived nearby, a leaking dishwasher was a twenty-minute visit. When you live in Ottawa or Toronto, it is a lost day of work, a drive down the 401 and a hope that the plumber you found online actually shows up. We wrote more about that in self-managing an Eastern Ontario rental from Toronto or Ottawa.
Here is a composite of a situation we see often. A couple bought a one-bedroom condo in Kingston while they were working here. They rented it out when they relocated to Ottawa for work and decided to manage it themselves to save money.
The first year went fine. In the second year, the tenant gave notice in late October, which is the hardest time of year to lease in this market. The owners drove down twice to show the unit, accepted an applicant they felt rushed into, and did not verify the employment reference. Within four months, rent was late. Within six months, it had stopped.
By the time they called us, they were dealing with a Landlord and Tenant Board application, a unit that needed repairs, and several months of rent they were never going to see. The money they saved by not paying a manager was gone many times over.
None of that happened because they were careless people. It happened because they were doing a professional job part time, from another city, with no system behind them.
Frankly, a property manager is not the right answer for every single-rental owner. The clearest case is thin cash flow.
If your rent only just covers your mortgage, condo fees, property tax and insurance, adding a management fee can turn a small positive month into a negative one. In that situation, hiring a manager does not fix your problem. It hides it for a while and then makes it worse.
Before you hire anyone, sit down with your real numbers:
If what is left over is close to zero, deal with that first. That might mean adjusting the rent at the next tenancy, refinancing, or asking whether this property still belongs in your plan. A good property manager will tell you that before taking you on. If one does not, consider it a warning sign.
There is also a middle option for owners who are comfortable handling day-to-day issues but want help with the hardest part, which is finding the right resident. KEILTY’s Lease-Up Mandate covers marketing, showings, screening and the lease for a one-time fee, and then hands the tenancy back to you.
Many Ontario property managers charge a percentage of the monthly rent, often somewhere around 8 to 12 percent. The problem with a percentage is that your cost goes up every time your rent goes up, even though the work does not change.
KEILTY takes a different approach for single-family homes and condo units:
Our current rates are published on our single-family rental management page, and your free rental evaluation includes a written quote for your property.
Take a one-bedroom Kingston condo renting for $2,100 a month. Two or three months of unpaid rent on that unit is $4,200 to $6,300, before you count repairs, lost time or the months it can take to resolve a matter at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Put that number beside a year of flat-rate management, including the cost of placing a new resident, and the comparison is usually not close. One avoided mistake tends to pay for years of management.
That said, if your annual cash flow is smaller than the cost of management, go back to the previous section. The math has to work first.
If I had to name the single biggest thing a one-rental owner gets from a professional manager, it is not rent collection or maintenance. It is getting the right resident into the unit in the first place, and knowing exactly what to do if something goes wrong.
When you own a 100-unit building, one difficult tenancy is a problem. When you own one condo, it is your entire income from that investment, and possibly more. A single-property owner has no other units to absorb the loss.
Good screening is not a gut feeling at a showing. It is a consistent process applied to every applicant, which also keeps you on the right side of Ontario’s Human Rights Code. At KEILTY that includes:
Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act is detailed, and the Landlord and Tenant Board is unforgiving of procedural mistakes. Use the wrong form, serve a notice incorrectly, or miss a step, and your application can be dismissed and you start again.
Some of the basics an experienced manager handles routinely:
Most self-managing landlords learn these rules the hard way, usually in the middle of their first dispute. A manager who works with this legislation every day keeps small problems from becoming Board hearings.
Answer these questions candidly:
If you answered no to the first three and yes to the fourth, a property manager is very likely worth it. If the cash flow question is the one that fails, start there. For more on the warning signs, see when to stop self-managing your Ontario rental.
Is a property manager worth it for just one rental? Usually yes if you live far from the property, cannot handle urgent repairs yourself, or have not managed a tenancy problem in Ontario before. Usually not if the rent barely covers your carrying costs, because the management fee can turn a small positive month into a negative one.
How do property managers charge for a single condo or house? Most Ontario managers charge a percentage of monthly rent plus a leasing fee for each new resident. KEILTY charges a flat monthly rate per unit that does not rise when your rent does, plus a leasing fee only when a new lease is signed.
Can I hire a manager just to find a tenant? Yes. KEILTY’s Lease-Up Mandate covers marketing, showings, screening and the lease, then hands the tenancy back to you to manage yourself.
We take on a limited number of new Full Service mandates each quarter so every owner gets proper attention, including owners with one condo or one house. If you own a rental in the Kingston area and are not sure whether management makes sense for you, we will run the numbers with you and tell you what we really think, even if the answer is that you do not need us yet.
What would it be worth to you to never take another late-night call about your rental?
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-10-26, not legal advice. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
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