Updated on August 31, 2026 by John Michailidis, MSIRE, JD, Real Property Management of Sarasota & Manatee
The short answer: It depends less on your property than on you — how close you live, how you feel about phone calls from strangers, how handy you are, and what your time is worth. Lease only suits the owner who is nearby, capable, and willing to be on call, and who wants a professional to handle just the tenant search and lease signing. Full service suits the owner who wants the property to run without them. There is also a middle option most owners never hear about, and a real cost difference between the two ends that is the opposite of what people assume.
This applies whether your rental sits in Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice, Lakewood Ranch, North Port, Palmetto, Parrish, Ellenton, Osprey, Nokomis, Siesta Key, Port Charlotte, or Englewood — the Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte County market.
Start With an Honest Look at Yourself
Nobody can answer this for you, but a handful of questions usually settle it. Owners contact me about full service and it becomes clear within ten minutes that lease only would serve them better. Just as often it goes the other way. Some companies push every owner into the same box; I would rather match the service to the person.
Work through these honestly:
- How far do you live from the property? Beyond about a 45-minute drive, self-managing the day-to-day gets difficult fast.
- Are you comfortable dealing with strangers, and with the occasional difficult conversation about money?
- Can you hold a firm line on a lease term you agreed to, or do you tend to let things slide?
- Are you detail-oriented about deadlines, records, and accounting, or is that not how you are wired?
- Are you confident you understand fair housing obligations at the federal, state, and local level — in advertising, in screening, and in how you communicate with applicants?
- Are you handy with a wrench and a plunger, or would you rather someone else handle that?
- Do you have the schedule flexibility to drop what you are doing and show the property, sometimes on evenings and weekends?
- Which is scarcer for you right now — money, or time?
The last question is usually the one that decides it.
What Full Service Actually Means
Full service means the entire leasing process and the day-to-day management are handled for you. You have no direct interaction with the residents and no hands-on role with the property. It suits the owner who lives more than a 45-minute drive away, the local owner whose life is already full, and the owner who has the time but no interest in advertising, screening, leasing, bookkeeping, collections, compliance, maintenance, and inspections.
As a full-service owner you have two monthly jobs:
- Check that your funds were deposited.
- Read the monthly statement showing income and expenses.
That is it. A good property manager is not going to call you to say they plunged a toilet. They get it done, pay the bill, and it appears on your statement. The reporting should be detailed enough to stand on its own, and you are always free to ask about anything on it. Beyond that, the point is to leave you alone unless something genuinely serious happens — which should be rare.
What you approve, and what you do not
Full service does not mean spending decisions get made without you. You hold a $500 maintenance reserve for routine work; anything above that comes to you for approval before it happens. Semi-annual interior and exterior inspections keep small problems from becoming large ones, and those carry a $150 inspection fee. Nothing lands on your statement that you did not agree to.
What Lease Only Means
As the name suggests, lease only means a professional handles every part of the leasing process — from the first advertisement to the move-in walk-through — and then hands the property back to you for the day-to-day. Typically that includes:
- Photos, video, and all advertising
- Showing coordination
- Tenant screening and background checks
- Lease preparation and signing
- Security deposit collection and clearing
- Move-in inspection
- Resident orientation walk-through
- Key handover
- Collection of the first month’s rent
Our lease-only clients tend to look similar to one another: they live reasonably close to the property, they are often retired or semi-retired, they are handy and genuinely like fixing things, and many have self-managed before. After move-in, everything is theirs — maintenance calls, rent collection, renewals, and eventual move-out.
If Not Full Service, Why Not Do the Leasing Yourself Too?
Fair question, and plenty of owners do. But many self-managing owners still hire out the leasing, and I can attest to that because a good number of them are our clients. A few reasons why.
A lot goes into leasing, and it puts you face to face with a wide range of people and temperaments. Many owners would simply rather have a third party handle first contact and showings.
More importantly, leasing sets the tone for the entire tenancy. Having a professional run it establishes a businesslike relationship from day one, and that carries forward through every rent due date and maintenance request afterward.
There is also a screening effect that is easy to overlook. Some applicants deliberately avoid professionally managed properties because they believe they can get away with more dealing directly with an owner. A professional leasing process filters some of those applicants out before they ever reach your door.
Two practical points. The leasing fee covers all advertising costs, and a leasing company does not get paid until a resident is placed — so your property gets advertised widely and on the sites that actually produce applications. And there is the matter of meeting strangers at a vacant property on your own, which is worth thinking about honestly.
What Each One Costs
Here is the part the original version of this article left out, and it changes the decision for some owners. Full pricing is on the pricing page.
- Leasing Only — 100% of the first month’s rent, no monthly fee. We place the resident; you take it from there.
- Leasing + D.I.Y. Landlord Support — 80% of the first month’s rent, plus $99.50 per month. You keep the day-to-day; you get the software, the accounting, and back-office support behind you.
- Blue Ribbon — full service. 80% of the first month’s rent, 9.9% of rent collected, $70 per month while the property is vacant. Re-Rent Guarantee 90 days.
- Premier Plus — full service, top tier. 70% of the first month’s rent, 11.9% of rent collected, nothing while vacant. Re-Rent Guarantee twelve months, eviction protection included, free lock re-key. Roughly 70% of our owners choose this one.
Read that list again and notice something counterintuitive: lease only carries the highest leasing fee of the four. You pay 100% of the first month’s rent, where a full-service owner pays 70% or 80%. That is not a penalty — it reflects that the leasing fee is the only fee we collect on a lease-only property. But it means the gap between lease only and full service in year one is narrower than most owners assume, and it closes further every time the property turns over, because each turnover is another leasing fee.
So the real question is not which is cheaper. It is how often your property is likely to turn over, and what your own hours are worth in between.
Which one fits
- Nearby, handy, semi-retired, wants control — Leasing Only.
- Nearby and hands-on, but wants the paperwork, accounting, and a professional behind you — Leasing + D.I.Y.
- Wants it handled, with a lower monthly fee and does not expect frequent turnover — Blue Ribbon.
- Out of the area, busy, or simply wants maximum protection and no vacancy fee — Premier Plus.
What We Manage, and What We Do Not
So you do not waste a call: we manage residential property on annual leases — single-family homes, individual condo units, townhomes, and small residential buildings of roughly two to eight units, across Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte counties. We do not manage commercial property, and we do not handle seasonal, vacation, or short-term rentals of any kind.
In Conclusion
Rental owners have four realistic paths: self-manage everything, hire out just the leasing, hire out the leasing and keep the day-to-day with support behind you, or hand over the whole thing. Choosing well is a matter of being honest about your skills, your inclinations, your distance from the property, and your available time — and then looking at the fees side by side rather than assuming the cheapest-looking option is the cheapest option.
Keep Reading
- The Ultimate Guide to Property Management in Sarasota FL — the full picture, if this is new to you
- Seven ways full service management affects your return — the case for the full-service end of the range
- How to choose a property manager without getting burned — five checks to run on any company, including this one
- Looking for property managers near me? — the longer interview checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions owners ask most often when they are deciding between the two.
What is the difference between lease only and full service property management?
Lease only ends at move-in. A professional advertises the property, screens applicants, prepares and signs the lease, collects the deposit and first month’s rent, completes the move-in inspection, and hands you the keys and the file. Everything after that is yours: maintenance, rent collection, renewals, and move-out. Full service covers all of it, including collections, maintenance coordination, inspections, accounting, and the eventual turnover, and you interact with the statements rather than the residents.
Who is lease only actually right for?
The owner who lives close to the property, is genuinely handy, has the schedule flexibility to respond to a maintenance call the same day, and is comfortable having direct conversations with residents about rent and rules. In practice our lease-only clients are often retired or semi-retired, frequently have self-managed before, and want professional help with exactly one part of the job: finding the right resident and papering the lease correctly. If you live out of the area or your weeks are already full, lease only tends to become a problem within the first year.
What is Leasing plus D.I.Y. Landlord Support?
It is the middle option most owners never hear about. The leasing fee is 80% of the first month’s rent, and $99.50 per month gets you the management software, the accounting and reporting, and back-office support while you continue handling the day-to-day yourself. It suits the hands-on owner who wants the record-keeping and the professional infrastructure without giving up direct control of the property. Owners often use it as a bridge, keeping it for a year or two before deciding whether to move up to full service.
Can I start with lease only and switch to full service later?
Yes, and a fair number of owners do exactly that. It usually happens after the first difficult maintenance call at an inconvenient hour, after a move out of the area, or once a second property arrives and the workload doubles. There is nothing awkward about the conversation — call us and we will move the property onto a management plan. Worth knowing in advance: full-service plans carry a monthly fee based on rent collected, and the plan you pick determines whether there is a fee during vacancy.
How close do I need to live to manage a rental myself?
About a 45-minute drive is the practical limit, and that is a rule of thumb rather than a rule. The distance itself is not the problem; the problem is what the distance does to response time. A resident with no hot water, a vendor who needs to be let in, a showing that has to happen this evening — each of those is a small matter nearby and a lost afternoon from an hour away. If you are outside that radius, or your work makes weekday response unrealistic, self-managing the day-to-day tends not to hold up.
Not Sure Which One You Are?
Tell me about the property and how you would like to spend your time, and I will tell you which of the four plans fits — including saying so if lease only or self-managing is the better call for you. Start with a free rental evaluation: what your property should rent for in today’s market, what it needs to be rent-ready, and which service level makes sense given how often it is likely to turn over. No cost, no obligation.
Call 941-225-8183 — voicemail is fine, calls get returned promptly. REALTORS with a referral should use 941-225-8185. We also offer a bonus for current and retired military, first responders, healthcare workers, and educators; mention it when you call.
About the Author
John Michailidis, MSIRE, JD, is the broker and owner of Real Property Management of Sarasota & Manatee, a Sarasota-based residential property management company serving rental owners across Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte counties with both full-service management and lease-only services. He has been in real estate since 1989 and has run this office since April 2012.
This content is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Readers should consult with licensed professionals regarding their specific circumstances.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
