Property Management Trends in Canada: What Matters in 2026

The market behind the trends

Canadian property management is a large, steady industry rather than a fast-growing one. IBISWorld estimates that industry revenue grew at a 2.6% compound annual rate to reach $10.7 billion by the end of 2026. The same analysis describes a more competitive, tenant-driven phase, with managers putting more emphasis on retention, service quality, flexible lease structures and communication.

That combination explains most of what follows. When revenue growth is modest and tenants can shop around, the levers left are cost per unit and tenant experience. Both come down to how well day-to-day operations run, and maintenance is the largest day-to-day workload.

The cost side is visible in industry data. A Better Business Bureau industry report puts labour and wages as the largest single operating cost for property management firms, at 26.7% of revenue. It also identifies facilities management, which includes maintenance and repairs, as the fastest-growing part of the industry. Note that the report dates from 2022, so treat the percentage as a benchmark rather than a current figure.

Trend 1: AI moves from pilot to plan

Canadian owners are not waiting. In Deloitte’s 2024 Canadian real estate survey, 51% of respondents named AI process automation as a top driver of their digital transformation priorities over the following 12 to 18 months. BOMA Canada later reported that 62% of building decision-makers plan to invest in AI within two years.

How teams use it matters more than whether they do. The Institute of Real Estate Management found that among AI-adopting property professionals, 85% use general-purpose AI tools and 66% use AI features built into their core property management software. That points to two common patterns: staff using chat assistants for drafting and research, and managers using whatever AI their existing platform ships.

Both have limits. A general chat assistant helps an employee write a notice faster, but it does not talk to a tenant at 11 p.m., decide whether a leak is an emergency or call a plumber. The more valuable shift is AI that runs a whole workflow, with people supervising exceptions. Multifamily Executive describes this as autonomous property management, where teams move away from repetitive tasks toward resident-facing work.

Trend 2: Maintenance coordination is the first workflow to automate

If you map where a property management team spends its hours, maintenance coordination stands out. A single repair can involve a tenant report, follow-up questions, a decision about urgency, a vendor call, scheduling between two parties, a reminder, a completion check and an invoice. Most of those steps are communication, not judgment.

Technology can now handle much of that chain. According to Multifamily Executive, automation can assign technicians to pressing requests, procure parts and schedule appointments, leaving staff to focus on higher-value work. Here is how the pieces break down in practice:

Two details separate useful automation from a gimmick. First, troubleshooting should reduce unnecessary service calls, such as a tripped breaker or a reset button, without ever discouraging a tenant from reporting something serious. Second, emergencies need a defined path to a human. We cover both in our guides to rental maintenance troubleshooting by text and after-hours maintenance.

Trend 3: Messaging-first tenant communication

Tenants report problems on the channel that is nearest to hand, and that is usually a phone’s messaging app. Portals and apps ask tenants to download something, remember a login and fill in a form. Calls require someone to answer. Text requires neither.

For operators, a messaging-first approach changes the economics of intake. Photos arrive with the first message, follow-up questions happen in the same thread, and the record is written automatically instead of being typed up after a call. For tenants, the benefit is simply less friction, which supports the retention emphasis IBISWorld describes.

This is also where many managers are cautious, and rightly. A text channel must be tied to the property record so the request lands in the right unit, and it must leave a clear audit trail. If you are weighing this, look at how a system identifies the tenant and unit, what it stores, and how staff step in. Our page on tenant maintenance requests by text message shows how that flow works.

Trend 4: Integrated systems over point solutions

Many Canadian owners are still running a patchwork. Deloitte’s 2024 survey found that 67% of property owners used point or hybrid solutions, while fewer than one-third used integrated real estate management solutions. Deloitte’s advice is to consider integrated solutions rather than relying on legacy apps to fill gaps.

For a property management company, “integrated” does not have to mean ripping out the system of record. It means the tools around it share data. The practical test is whether a maintenance request created by text shows up where your team already works, and whether completed jobs, costs and vendor details flow back without re-keying.

This matters for reporting. Deloitte notes that connected systems help owners monitor operational performance and spot variances in real time, and advises linking AI investments to financial measures such as NOI growth and operating expense reduction. Applied to maintenance, that means tracking a handful of numbers consistently:

• Time from request to first response
• Time from request to completed repair
• Share of requests resolved without a vendor visit
• Cost per unit and per repair category
• Vendor response time and repeat-visit rate

Record-keeping has a compliance side too. CMHC’s operations guidance for one of its housing programs says that detailed maintenance files for each unit are essential for tracking repair history, managing warranties and supporting insurance claims. That guidance is written for a specific program, but the principle applies to any portfolio: if every request and repair is logged automatically, the file builds itself.

Trend 5: Vendor management at scale

As portfolios grow, vendor coordination becomes a job of its own. Who is approved for which trade, who answers after hours, who is slow to invoice, who needs a second visit? Managers who handle this in spreadsheets and phone contacts lose visibility quickly.

The trend is toward structured vendor panels with automated dispatch and performance tracking. Teams keep the trades they trust, add overflow coverage where needed, and review results with data rather than memory. We go deeper in how to manage property maintenance vendors at scale and in our overview of automated vendor dispatch.

Cost transparency belongs in the same conversation. If you are comparing in-house staff, outsourced management and software, it helps to understand the full cost behind property management fees rather than headline rates alone.

Trend 6: Fewer after-hours interruptions, clearer emergency rules

Tenants do not schedule problems around office hours, and managers are tired of being the first call at night. The trend is to separate true emergencies from everything else, automatically, so on-call staff are woken only when it counts.

The legal baseline matters here. CMHC states that landlords must handle and pay for emergency repairs affecting tenant health or safety, or putting the property at risk, such as flooding or heating failures. Specific timelines and procedures differ by province, so check your own provincial residential tenancy rules when you write an emergency protocol.

A good protocol names what counts as an emergency, who is contacted first, what the tenant is told to do in the meantime, and how the decision is recorded. Automation can apply that protocol consistently at any hour, which is more reliable than depending on whoever is awake.

Privacy, security and oversight: the checks that come first

Automating tenant communication means handling personal information, and Canadian landlords have obligations that do not change because software is involved. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada says landlords must follow PIPEDA or substantially similar provincial law, and obtain consent and protect electronic documents with safeguards such as passwords and encryption. The OPC also explains that landlords must identify reasons for collecting information and limit purposes to what a reasonable person considers appropriate.

Before adopting any maintenance automation, ask the vendor and your own team:

1. What tenant data is collected, and for what stated purpose?
2. Where is it stored, who can access it, and how is access controlled?
3. How do tenants learn that they are texting an automated assistant, and how do they reach a person?
4. Which decisions can the system make alone, and which always go to staff, such as spend above a set limit?
5. Can you export your data and records if you leave?

Speak to your privacy counsel or the relevant privacy commissioner if your portfolio spans provinces with different rules. Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia have their own private-sector privacy laws, so a multi-province operator should not assume one policy fits everywhere.

How to roll out automation without hurting service

The teams that do well treat this as change management, not a software switch. IREM’s proptech research reported increased use of training, continuous improvement and pilot testing, and suggested this may reflect greater awareness of how much change management matters to results. Multifamily Executive likewise notes that implementation can proceed step by step.

A practical sequence:

1. Baseline first. Record current response times, request volume, after-hours calls and cost per request for a month.
2. Pilot on a few buildings. Choose a mix: one newer building, one older, one with frequent after-hours issues.
3. Keep your existing software. Connect the new tool to your system of record so staff keep their workflows.
4. Tell tenants and vendors in advance. Explain the text number, what it can do and how to reach a person.
5. Review exceptions weekly. Read the conversations that escalated and adjust rules.
6. Expand when the numbers hold. Compare against the baseline before adding more buildings.

We built a rental maintenance cost calculator to help you estimate your starting point before you pilot anything.

Our perspective: coordination, not another system

We talk to a lot of landlords and managers, and the same pattern comes up. They already have a system of record they like, or at least one they have invested years in. What overwhelms their teams is not tracking maintenance. It is chasing it: asking the tenant one more question, calling three vendors, reminding someone to confirm a visit.

That is why we built GoLando around coordination rather than record-keeping. Software that tracks requests still needs a person to move each request forward. We think the next gain in this industry comes from the software moving requests forward itself, with people stepping in for judgment calls, relationships and anything unusual.

We also think the trend toward “one platform for everything” is overstated for maintenance. Property management platforms do a lot well. Replacing them to fix a communication problem is expensive and disruptive. A better path is to complement what you have, which is why GoLando integrates with Buildium and is designed to sit alongside your existing workflows.

Finally, we are Canadian-owned and operated, and Canada is our first market. That shapes how we think about provincial differences, privacy expectations and the realities of running rentals from Halifax to Charlottetown. If you want the background, here is the story behind GoLando.

— Ryan

Putting this into practice with GoLando

GoLando is an AI-powered maintenance coordination platform for landlords and property managers. Tenants text a number to report an issue. The AI troubleshoots, flags emergencies and coordinates repairs with your approved vendors or, optionally, vendors from the GoLando Vendor Network. A central dashboard shows requests, vendor activity, property maintenance history, expenses and performance metrics.

Plans are tiered by portfolio size, and published prices are in Canadian dollars: Starter is $39 per month or $390 per year, Pro is $69 per month or $690 per year, Pro+ is $149 per month or $1,490 per year, Mogul is $249 per month or $2,490 per year, and Scale is $449 per month or $4,490 per year. Enterprise starts from $999 per month. Jobs distributed through the Vendor Network carry a network fee of 5 to 10%. See the full pricing page, or read how we work with property management companies managing hundreds or thousands of units.