Your best PM just resigned. It will cost you $47,000.

Replacing a mid-tier PM in an Australian agency costs 4–7× their monthly salary once you count the losses nobody puts on a spreadsheet.

The situation: "You're losing PMs every 14 months. That's $47k with each one."

Ask most principals what a PM resignation costs them and you'll hear the recruiter's fee. That's the visible 15%. The other 85% quietly bleeds out of the rent roll for the next six months. That's what actually determines whether the year finishes ahead.

The five buckets nobody adds up

Recruitment and onboarding is the smallest bucket. Real losses live inside these five: (1) landlord attrition in the 90 days around the handover (historically 3–6% of the departing PM's portfolio); (2) arrears creep, which typically doubles for 8–12 weeks because the incoming PM is triaging inboxes, not chasing; (3) routine inspection slippage, where every skipped inspection is a lease-renewal risk; (4) trust account errors during transition; and (5) the opportunity cost of you (the principal) covering the desk instead of listing.

Rule of thumb: if the departing PM managed 140 properties at $2,100 average annual management fee, a 4% attrition event during handover costs the roll $11,700 in recurring revenue. That's before you rebuild it.

Why PMs actually leave (it's rarely money)

Exit interviews across 200+ Australian agencies show three consistent drivers: unclear portfolio boundaries, no visible pathway beyond 'senior PM', and a workload that spikes without warning. Base salary was the primary driver in fewer than 1 in 5 cases.

The uncomfortable read: PMs leave rolls that feel chaotic, not rolls that pay less. A portfolio of 180 with clean systems retains better than a portfolio of 130 with a broken CRM.

What the top-quartile agencies do differently

They cap portfolios by task-count, not door-count. They publish a written progression ladder (PM → Senior PM → BDM → Department Lead). And they run a 'PM health score' quarterly. It's the same idea as a rent roll health score, applied to the people.

None of this eliminates churn. It moves the average tenure from 14 months to 28+ months, which is enough to compound the roll instead of constantly rebuilding it.

Key takeaways

• The real cost of losing a PM is 4–7× monthly salary, not the recruiter's invoice.

• Landlord attrition in the 90-day handover window is where the biggest dollars go.

• Cap portfolios by task volume, not property count.

• Publish a written progression path. Chaos is what costs you people, not pay.

Where does your rent roll sit on this? Rent Roll Pulse benchmarks the 15 health metrics that drive valuation against Australian peers and shows you which ones to move first. Start your 14-day trial or join the Rent Roll Pulse community to talk it through with other principals.