Memphis Property Management Fees: What It Actually Costs in 2026

What are typical property management fees in Memphis? Memphis long-term managers charge 8 to 12 percent of collected rent, a tenant placement fee of 50 to 100 percent of one month, and a renewal fee of roughly 150 to 400 dollars. Short-term managers charge 15 to 25 percent and most keep the guest cleaning fee on top. LPS charges 8 percent long-term, 50 percent of one month to place a resident, 195 dollars at renewal, and 10 percent all-in short-term.

Ask ten Memphis property managers what they charge and you will get ten different answers, because almost nobody quotes the whole number. The monthly percentage is the part everyone advertises. The leasing fee, the renewal fee, the maintenance markup, and the vacancy math are the parts that decide what you actually keep.

Every quote runs on four dials: the monthly percentage, the tenant placement fee, the renewal fee, and how maintenance gets billed. Two managers with the same headline percentage can land thousands of dollars apart once all four are on the table. Here is how the pieces fit together in 2026, with the Memphis-specific detail that changes the math.

The headline fee: monthly management

Long-term management in Memphis generally runs 8 to 10 percent of collected rent. Some firms quote a flat monthly dollar amount instead, which favors the manager on higher-rent homes and the owner on lower-rent ones. LPS bills long-term management at 8 percent of collected rent, and nothing comes out of that number for vacancy or maintenance reserves, because those are your money held for your property, not a management fee.

Short-term (Airbnb, VRBO) is a different animal. The typical Memphis short-term manager charges 15 to 25 percent, and most of them charge that on the room rate only while keeping the guest cleaning fee on top. LPS charges 10 percent of the owner gross booking revenue with cleaning in the base, and the in-house cleaning team is paid from the cleaning the guest already covers, so cleaning nets to zero for the owner. When you compare managers, compare the all-in number, not the advertised percentage. A 15 percent fee on the room that also pockets the cleaning fee is usually a larger real cut than a 10 percent fee on the full booking.

The fee nobody circles: the maintenance markup

This is where out-of-state owners get surprised, and it is the single most common story in the Memphis threads on BiggerPockets: the property looks perfect for three months, then month four brings a repair bill that does not add up. The pattern that shows up again and again is a minimum service-call charge, labor around 125 dollars an hour, and materials billed at retail with a markup on top (BiggerPockets Memphis forums, 2026).

The markup is invisible until something breaks, and in Memphis something breaks. Copper theft on a vacant unit, an HVAC condenser walking off between tenants, a slab leak in an older Midtown home: these are line items, not hypotheticals. Ask any manager, in writing, whether maintenance is billed at cost or at a markup, and whether they own the crew or sub it out. LPS runs maintenance in-house at cost, which is the whole reason the month-four number stays flat instead of spiking.

The fees that hide in the lease events

• Leasing fee: commonly 50 to 100 percent of one month rent when a new tenant is placed. On a 1,400 dollar home that is 700 to 1,400 dollars every time the unit turns.
• Renewal fee: often 150 to 400 dollars to keep a good tenant in place. Usually worth paying, because the alternative is a turn.
• Marketing, inspection, and admin fees: small individually, real in aggregate.

The number that matters is turnover, because every turn stacks a leasing fee on top of vacancy. Which brings up the part of the fee conversation everyone skips.

The real cost is vacancy, not the fee

Run the velocity math. A home leased at 1,350 dollars in month one grosses 16,200 dollars over a year. The same home held out for 1,450 dollars but sitting empty for two months grosses 14,500 dollars, and then you still pay a leasing fee to fill it. The higher rent is about 1,700 dollars worse before fees. A manager who fills fast at a fair rent beats a manager who chases the top dollar and lets the unit sit, every time. Days on market is a fee you pay in silence.

Two Memphis-specific costs to underwrite before you buy

• Short-term permits. If you are buying to run an Airbnb, Ordinance 5631 requires a permit before you rent to guests: 300 dollars to apply, 150 dollars to renew, and a 50-dollar-per-day-per-unit penalty for operating without one. By the city own estimate a large majority of local short-term rentals are unpermitted, which means a chunk of your comp set is operating on borrowed time. Underwrite the permitted number, not the gray-market one.
• Property taxes after the 2025 reappraisal. Shelby County reassessed in 2025 and many investor parcels jumped. Your monthly management percentage does not change, but your net does, so model the new tax bill, not last year figure.

What to actually ask

Do not ask what is your fee. Ask for the whole stack in writing: monthly percentage, leasing fee, renewal fee, maintenance markup or at cost, who owns the crew, average days on market for their listings, and how they handle a permit or a tax appeal. The firm that answers all of that quickly is usually the firm worth hiring.

We keep a running side-by-side of what Memphis firms charge, updated as fees change, on our Memphis property management comparison. To model a specific home before you commit, the Memphis rental investment calculator takes the fee stack and shows the number you keep.

One honest caveat: fee structures change, and a few Memphis firms still will not put the maintenance markup in writing at all. When a manager dodges that question, treat the dodge as the answer.

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