51 Hours a Month: What Self-Managing a Rental Actually Takes, Task by Task

You may have seen the figure: landlords who manage their own properties spend 51 hours a month doing it. That is more than a working week, every month. If you are thinking about managing a rental yourself, it sounds like a reason not to.

This page looks at what the figure measures, then breaks a single let into the jobs it actually involves, with a rough time for each. The point is not that self-managing is easy. It is that most of the hours are coordination and remembering dates, not legal expertise, and the two need different fixes. Correct as at 22 October 2026.

Where the 51 hours comes from

The figure comes from Pegasus Insight's Landlord Trends research for the second quarter of 2026, reported in October 2026. In that research:

• landlords who self-manage spend an average of 51 hours a month on their rentals;
• landlords on a full management service spend 11 hours;
• across all landlords the average is 33 hours;
• landlords with one to five properties spend 18 hours a month, rising to 83 hours for those with 11 or more.

Pegasus Insight also polls landlords for the National Residential Landlords Association. The NRLA's release of 26 August 2026 reports a Pegasus Insight poll of 567 NRLA members, carried out between 21 June and 10 July 2026, which found that 66% of private rentals in England and Wales are run by a letting agent in some way.

Two things to keep in mind before the 51 hours puts you off:

1. It is per landlord, not per property. The 51 hours covers everything a self-managing landlord owns. The research does not say how many properties the average self-manager has. Its own split by portfolio size, 18 hours for one to five properties and 83 for eleven or more, shows how much the number depends on it.
2. It is what landlords say they spend. It is a survey answer, not a timesheet, and each landlord decides what counts. Bookkeeping, tax returns, mortgage admin and travel may all be in there.

The 18-hour figure is the closer guide for a landlord with one or two lets. The table below is closer still, because it is built from the jobs themselves.

One let, one year, task by task

The times below are our own estimates, not survey data. They are for a single let in England, managed by a landlord who lives within reach of it, using a template agreement and booking tradespeople rather than doing the work. Your times will differ. The last column says what kind of work each job mostly is:

• knowing the rule: you have to know what to do and do it right, but once learned it barely changes from one tenancy to the next;
• remembering the date: the job is simple, and the risk is that it gets done late or not at all;
• just time: it isn't really a rule or a date problem. It is phone calls, viewings and waiting in for people.

Add it up and a year with a change of tenant comes to roughly 45–90 hours, or about 4–7 hours a month. A settled year, with the same tenant all year and no new tenancy, comes to roughly 20–45 hours, or 2–4 hours a month.

That is well below the survey's 18 hours a month for landlords with one to five properties. Part of the gap is what the table leaves out: accounts and tax, mortgage admin, and a bad year with a serious repair or a tenant in arrears. Part of it is that most landlords in that band have more than one property. Treat the table as a floor for a well-run single let, not a promise.

Put a figure on the hours you would be buying back. Full management takes a percentage of the rent every month. The Letting Agent Cost Calculator works out what that comes to for your rent over 1, 5 and 10 years, so you can see what the 40-hour gap between 51 and 11 costs in fees.

Most of the hours are not legal skill

Look at the last column again. The jobs that are mostly knowing the rule, the agreement and the rent review, add up to a few hours a year. You learn them once. They are the part landlords worry about most, and they are the smallest part of the time.

The big rows are finding a tenant and repairs. Those are coordination: viewings, phone calls, quotes, letting people in. An agent does save you those hours, but they are not legal work.

Most of the rest is remembering the date: when the rent should have arrived, when a certificate runs out, when an inspection is due, when the deposit has to be protected. Each one is a small job. The risk is that it slips, and with several properties on different cycles, several will.

So "self-managing takes 51 hours a month" mixes up three different things. The coordination hours are real, and they are what an agent's fee mostly buys. Whether that is worth the fee in your case is a separate question, worked through in do you actually need a letting agent. The legal knowledge takes a few hours a year once you have it. The dates take almost no time at all, provided something is keeping track of them.

Paying for full management buys back hours. It does not take away your responsibility for how the tenancy is run, and you still need to know the dates were met, whoever met them. Keeping your own copy of the dates is cheap and worth doing either way, which is what a free tracker that does the remembering for you is for.

What the Compliance Tracker takes off the "remembering the date" column

LetSorted's Compliance Tracker is free. Here is exactly what it does today, and what it does not.

What it does:

• Builds the checklist from your answers. You answer a few questions per property: whether there is a tenant, whether there is a gas supply, whether you took a deposit, and when the tenancy started. It shows only the items that apply, and when it hides one it says why ("No gas supply at the property…"). The full list has 39 items.
• Emails you before three certificates run out. For the gas safety certificate, the electrical installation condition report (EICR) and the energy performance certificate (EPC), you get an email about a month before the date and another about a week before.
• Reminds you about the ICO data protection fee. If you tell it you are registered and give your renewal date, you get the same month and week emails before it renews.
• Shows the deposit deadline. If you give the date you received the deposit, the checklist shows the date protection is due by. It shows this date but does not email you about it.
• Sends one email on move-in day. If a property is empty and you give the date you expect a tenant to move in, it emails you on that day with the duties that start with a new tenancy.

What it does not do: it does not collect or chase rent, schedule inspections, remind you about a rent review, or handle repairs. Those rows of the table are still yours. The tracker covers the certificate dates, which are the part of the job that is easy to forget for a year and then expensive to have missed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 51 hours a month the time it takes to manage one property?

No. In Pegasus Insight's Landlord Trends research for the second quarter of 2026, 51 hours is the monthly average for a self-managing landlord across all of their properties. The same research puts landlords with one to five properties at 18 hours a month and those with 11 or more at 83.

How many hours does full management save?

In the same research, landlords on full management reported 11 hours a month against 51 for those who self-manage, a gap of 40 hours. That gap is an average across portfolios of different sizes, not a measurement of any one landlord's time.

Which parts of self-managing can a tool take off your hands?

The dates. Remembering when a certificate runs out, when a deposit has to be protected or when an inspection is due is the part software does well. It cannot show a flat, let a plumber in or decide what to do about a repair.