The 2026 Owner Preferences Report: What 1,009 Rental Owners Want Next

Owners Want to Buy Certainty. Most Property Managers Have Never Offered It.

Rental property owners are satisfied with their property managers. But, in their own words, they’re waiting for something most property managers have never offered them: certainty. That’s the headline of the 2026 Owner Preferences Report, a new AppFolio survey of 1,009 US residential rental owners with 1 to 25 units, all of whom use a professional property manager. About half of them want predictable monthly income as a service, and nearly three in four of those would pay for it. Here’s what else they told us and what it means for how you grow.

Nearly Half of Your Owners Don’t Think of Themselves as Investors

Asked to pick one word for themselves, nearly half of owners chose “owner.” Fewer than one in three chose “investor,” while two in five (42.2%) didn’t buy their rental as an investment at all. That matters for how you talk to them. The owner who moved for a job and chose to rent out their property isn’t grading you on cap rate. They want to know two things: Is my property in good hands, and is the money coming? Owners who became landlords after living in their home, moving out, and renting it also give their property manager the lowest advisor marks of any group in the survey. The gap is small, but it’s consistent, and it isn’t because they want less from the relationship; it’s because their property manager hasn’t framed the relationship around what they want from it.

They Trust You With the Work. They’re Waiting on Advice.

Owners overwhelmingly believe their property manager handles the day-to-day well: 92.7% agree. But only 44.7% strongly agree. Moving from execution to advice and conviction thins this number further. While 84.6% agree their property manager is a valuable advisor on their investment, only 32.1% strongly agree.

Ask the owners who don’t see an advisor about what’s missing from the relationship, and the most common answer isn’t competence or fees. It’s that the relationship feels transactional and there’s a lack of proactive guidance. Ask the owners who do see an advisor what makes the relationship valuable, and proactive guidance is the strength they cite least. Both answers point the same way: It’s rare for a property manager to bring something to the owner before they ask.

Owners aren’t grading whether the job gets done. They’re grading whether anyone is thinking about their investment when they’re not asking.

Half of Owners Want Predictable Income. Most Would Pay for It.

We described 7 services an owner might purchase from their property manager and asked two questions: Would you use it, and would you pay a monthly fee for it? The two services that led weren’t about growth or tax strategy. They were about certainty.

Consistent monthly income — the same amount, on the same day, whether or not the resident pays on time — drew the broadest interest: 52.7% of owners would use it, and 74.3% of those would pay a monthly fee for it. Rental property protection was right behind on both counts, and owners would pay for predictable maintenance coverage at nearly the same rate. Owners aren’t asking for a lower management fee. They’re asking to buy certainty, and they’re telling you they’d rather buy it from the person who already manages their property than go find it somewhere else.

Put the two numbers together, and roughly two in five owners overall are ready to pay for income certainty today, with no offer in front of them. Interest in an advance on future rent is the one concept where owners who never intended to be investors are as interested as those who did. Certainty turns out to be the least segmented need in the survey.

Most property managers have never offered any of this, not because owners said no, but because nobody asked.

They Want To Grow — With You

Two in three owners plan to add to their portfolio, and 44.5% are actively looking right now. 86.8% say they want to do it with their current property manager.

For property managers, the math is simple. The cheapest door you’ll ever add is the next one an existing owner buys. Most of your growth is already sitting in your owner list, and your owners are telling you they’d like to bring it to you. The question is whether the relationship gives them a reason to.

The owners in this survey are describing two things they’d buy from their current property manager — certainty and a growth partner — and neither shows up in most management agreements today. That isn’t a retention problem. It’s the most under-used asset in your business.

The Portal Is Where Owners Feel the Relationship Every Month

Online portals are important to 88.8% of owners, and 73.6% say they’d consider switching property management companies over an inadequate online experience. Among owners with 5 to 10 units — the segment most likely to be actively acquiring — that figure climbs to 85%.

It’s not because owners love software; it’s because the portal is where they experience the relationship between conversations. It’s where they see whether rent arrived, what maintenance costs, and whether their property manager turned data into actionable insights. On that last point, 70.3% say they get all the data they need, but only 32.7% strongly agree their property manager helps turn it into information they can act on. No single metric is used by even half of owners to judge performance — return on investment (ROI) leads at 42.7% — so the same statement can tell an owner and their property manager two different stories about the year.

The portal isn’t just a feature of the service. It’s the experience that proves whether the relationship is a transaction or a partnership. It’s also where the certainty conversation will happen, if it happens at all.

Don’t Just Fix the Fundamentals. Play a Whole New Game.

Handling the day-to-day well, communicating fast, giving owners a portal they trust — those keep you in the game. But to win the game, your owners want you to sell them certainty, show them performance, and grow with them.

The property management companies that thrive won’t be the ones with the lowest fee. They’ll be the ones that treat owner peace of mind — predictable income, predictable costs, a clear read on performance — as something they offer, not something they outsource. The AppFolio Performance Platform already puts the owner experience and performance reporting in one place. The next opportunity is turning what owners say they’d pay for into something they can buy from you. We’ll have more to say about that.

This post covers the highlights. The complete data, including breakdowns by portfolio size and how owners came to own, will be shared in the full 2026 Owner Preferences Report once it’s ready.