Managing properties comes with its load of communication. Whether you’re emailing potential occupants or resolving problems with your tenants, there's so much you can handle by yourself.

To help you build and maintain great landlord-tenant relationships, we’ve crafted email templates that will make it effortless to respond to maintenance issues, send rent reminders or follow up emails, and more.

Let’s jump right in.

The Best Property Management Email Templates For Your Rentals

We've crafted a list of the best property management email templates to help you in your everyday job and remove the hassle of managing resident communication.

If you’re using Missive, our collaborative email inbox, you can copy/paste these templates into your canned responses and share them with your team.

Application Communication

We’ve all heard it over and over again. First impressions matter. It’s especially true when it comes to attracting and retaining quality tenants for your rental. The application process will set the tone and influence a tenant's decision to move into one of your properties.

I know what you’re thinking right now:

Wait, I don’t need an email template for the application process; most of my leads come from my Facebook Marketplace listings. I don't even do any email marketing!

The good news is that our templates can save you a lot of time, no matter if you're sending your messages via email or Facebook Messenger. If you’re using Missive, you can manage your Facebook Messenger account inside the app and benefit even more from the email templates.

Our application communication templates are a great way to help you communicate effectively with applicants throughout the process.

New Application Auto-Reply

Here’s a template for an auto-reply you could send when receiving a rental application:

Approved Application

In the case the applicant has passed the credit check and the application has been approved, here’s a follow up email template you could use:

Declined Application

Sadly, some applicants aren’t always approved. We have created a thank you email template you can use when sending those emails. It will not only save you time but also save you the hassle of crafting them.

Application on the Waitlist

The last follow up email template you should have to manage the application process messages efficiently will come in handy when it’s time to let an applicant know they are on the waiting list:

Move-in Communication

There’s nothing like a welcoming email with all the information new tenants should have for their move-in to kick-start a good relationship. A well-crafted email can make them feel valued and reduce the questions a new tenant could ask. Here's an email template to help you create a professional and informative welcome email for your new tenants:

Maintenance Requests

Most emails overflowing your inbox as a property manager are often maintenance requests. Replying to those messages quickly and letting the resident know you're taking care of their request is the key to satisfying them.

With the following templates, you can send a response quickly while maintaining a personal touch.

Receiving a Maintenance Request

When receiving a tenant request, you should acknowledge it right away so your unit occupant knows that you’ll take care of it:

Issue Is Resolved Follow-Up

Then, once the issue has been resolved, sending a quick follow-up will show that you care about your client's satisfaction:

You should always maintain consistent messaging and set proper expectations by sending the initial response swiftly and following up once resolved.

Rent Payment Reminder Emails

If a resident is late paying rent, you must send a firmer reminder. Here are some tips:

• Keep the tone positive and casual - this is just a friendly nudge.
• Avoid sounding accusatory. Assume they just forgot or lost track of time.
• Give them the benefit of the doubt if it's their first reminder.
• Remind them of the exact late fees that apply as defined in the lease.
• Specify when late fees will start accruing if the balance remains unpaid.
• Provide the next steps if it remains unpaid by the late fee date. Example: notice to pay or quit.
• Offer to discuss payment plans or assistance programs if applicable.
• Include account balance, where to pay, and who to contact with questions.

Here’s a template that can be useful:

Renewals

Sending timely renewal notices is crucial for retaining residents and avoiding vacancies. You should start the renewal process at least 90 days before the lease expires, depending on your local laws. Your email should highlight any changes and provide deadlines for giving notice to vacate.

Here’s a template:

Move-Out Communication

When a resident decides to move out of one of the properties you’re managing, you’ll need to communicate all information necessary for the process. This process can feel daunting, especially if you manage many properties, but it can be automated quite easily using an email template.

Before exploring the template, let’s go over some good tips to make sure your message as effective as possible:

• Send an email reminding residents of the move-out inspection process 30 days before the move-out. Highlight that inspections assess damages beyond normal wear and tear.
• Include details on date/time of inspection and if residents need to be present. Offer to reschedule if the proposed time doesn't work.
• Attach your move-out cleaning checklist so residents can prepare the unit properly. Also, include some information about any charges for extensive cleaning or repairs.
• Thank residents for being tenants and let them know you are processing the return of their security deposit. Note your policy timeline for returning the deposit.

With all these tips in mind, you’ll be able to make this template yours and ensure the residents know what to expect when moving out.

Best Practices for Effective Property Management Emails

Being a good property manager isn’t just about caring for brick and mortar — it’s also about nurturing good relationships. Whether you’re a manager or a landlord, following email best practices can help you save time and avoid misunderstandings.

Here are some good tips to keep in mind when emailing your occupants:

   
• Personalize your communications: When sending an email to one of your residents, using their name in the greeting, rather than a generic "Hello" can go a long way.
   
• Use clear & descriptive subject lines: Subject lines should quickly communicate key info so residents know if they need to open the email. Avoid vague subject lines like "Lease Question" that could apply to anyone.
   
• Optimize for mobile: With more people reading email on phones, you should make sure that your messages render well on mobile devices. Using a single-column layout with buttons, choosing larger fonts, and breaking content into short paragraphs can all help your recipients have a better experience when consuming your messages.
   
• Keep it professional: Even if you’re using friendly greetings, your emails should stay polite and have a business-like tone. That being said, it's time to forget everything you've learned in school about writing like Shakespeare. You should be clear and concise. Plus, proofread to check for errors; there's nothing worse for your image than sloppy messages full of mistakes.

By mastering property management email communication, you can provide five-star service to your residents, operate efficiently, and support your team of property managers.

AI and email management go hand in hand.

There are AI tools dedicated to helping you clean your inbox (like SaneBox) and plenty that help you draft emails better and/or faster.

In a world where new AI tools are releasing every day, we're going to share some practical ways to use AI within email and your inbox.

At the end of each section, we'll cover some of the best AI email tools and AI assistants that can help you be more efficient in your inbox—whether you're a Gmail or Outlook user.

Here at Missive, our users get a lot of emails—100+ in a day in some cases. We crowdsourced the most practical, helpful AI suggestions that real businesses are using to maintain a clutter-free, productive inbox.

How is AI most commonly used in email?

Before we jump into the examples, these are the three broad buckets where AI is used within inboxes:

• Clean emails
• Draft emails
• Kick off other tasks

For cleaning emails, there is usually a deep purging functionality (i.e., archive all emails before a certain date) as well as a new system to keep your inbox clean after the purge (i.e., auto-categorization into folders/labels). Clean Email is a great example of this bucket.

For drafting and writing emails, you can create prompts that take into consideration your writing style, structure, and tone and add in resources for AI to pull context from—most commonly, your knowledge base or website.

For kicking off other tasks—this is the most exciting part of AI within your inbox. Certain tools (like Missive's AI-powered rules) allow you to automate a set of actions based on the context of an email. Imagine every email gets assigned to the right people, a set of tasks is created, a label or folder is applied, and an entry is made in your CRM—without a single human interaction. That’s magic!

Let's get to the AI-powered magic.

We're highlighting Missive's AI-powered rules in the examples below, but you can create your own AI email automations with your favorite tools, and we include some recommendations.

Here are the 6 best AI email workflows.

1. Use AI to auto-label and archive to reduce noise

Our inboxes get inundated every day, but not every email deserves equal attention. A clean inbox needs a system of categorization.

Historically, you could set up automations based on sender, message content, etc.—but now with AI, you can understand the context of emails, which changes email management entirely.

It's like having an AI assistant read each email and then categorize it based on the context within. It's far more robust than just looking at the sender domain.

If you don't already have some form of auto-labeling, auto-folder categorization, or archiving automation running, here are a few examples to get you started:

• Is this email promotional in nature → Add "Promotional" label → Archive
• Is this email a receipt or invoice → Add "Receipt" label → Forward to bookkeeper → Archive
• Is this email a newsletter → Add "Newsletter" label → Archive

By auto-filing certain emails out of your inbox using AI, you'll be able to focus on the ones that need your attention. And when you have some free time, you can visit your newsletter label to catch up on industry insights.

Most modern email clients have some version of this built in. If you're looking for an add-on tool for Gmail or Outlook, we cover those below as well.

Best AI email client that can auto-categorize emails:

Missive — Inbox collaboration for teams

• Pros:
  
  • Super flexible rules that can create any categorization system you can dream up
  • Designed for team collaboration (team and personal inboxes)
  • Supports Gmail, Outlook, and more
  • Plans start at $18/user/month‍
• Cons:
  
  • You must manually set up each rule, even defaults like Promotions in Gmail

Superhuman — Great for keyboard shortcut lovers

• Pros:
  
  • Supports Gmail and Outlook
  • Natural language features (e.g., "snooze for a couple weeks")‍
• Cons:
  
  • Expensive at $30/user/month
  • Steep learning curve if you're used to a traditional email client

Shortwave — For an AI-first inbox

• Pros:
  
  • AI-powered inbox search
  • Internal commenting for teams
  • Split inbox tabs‍
• Cons:‍
  
  • Only supports Gmail

Best AI add-on for Gmail/Outlook to auto-categorize emails:

SaneBox — AI email organizer that integrates with your existing client

• Pros:
  
  • Keep using your current client
  • "Deep Clean" feature for inbox reset
  • Free trial available‍
• Cons:
  
  • Limited to inbox cleanup and categorization
  • Requires time investment for training

Unroll.me — Alternative to SaneBox, bulk email cleaner for any provider

• Pros:
  
  • ‍Simple UI ("Keep", "Block", or "Roll Up")
  • Free to use‍
• Cons:
  
  • Uses your data for advertising

2. Use AI to trigger a set of tasks based on email type

AI can save time inside your inbox—but using it to trigger external workflows is where the magic really happens.

Example: A real estate business receives emails from both buyers and sellers in a shared inbox. Their workflows are completely different, so we used AI to identify the intent and trigger specific assignments, tasks, and summaries for the right team members.

If you have different workflows depending on the email, you can use AI to detect the context and automate accordingly.

Best AI automation builders for email:

Relay.app — AI-first workflow builder

• Pros:
  
  • Super easy setup
  • Lots of templates
  • Free plan (200 steps, 500 AI credits)‍
• Cons:
  
  • Fewer integrations than more established tools

Zapier — Classic builder, now with AI

• Pros: 
  
  • ‍Massive integration library
  • Lower cost at scale‍
• Cons:
  
  • Only 100 free Zaps on the free plan
  • No AI credits included

Missive — AI rules built into the collaborative inbox

3. Use AI to auto-unsubscribe from emails you don't read

Inbox maintenance is like pruning a tree—it requires regular attention.

With AI clients, workflow builders, or Missive rules, you can automatically clean up emails without manually clicking "unsubscribe."

Set it up narrowly (specific senders or domains) or broadly (based on open behavior, like emails unread for 30+ days).

Solutions like SaneBox include versions of this, though some manual training may be required.

4. Use AI to escalate urgent emails to management

Say you run an accounting firm where each client has a dedicated team and inbox.

Most messages are about invoices, but occasionally, an urgent email from the CEO arrives that needs management's attention.

AI can identify urgency and escalate the message automatically to the right person.

Other tools can do this too—but may require you to create specific folders/labels and rely on manual monitoring.

5. Use AI to draft emails for common questions

This works best if you have a large, public knowledge base or help center that the AI can reference. If you do, you can use one of the newer AI models that allow you to search the web.

Here's the prompt we use at Missive for our support team: 

You are an expert customer support specialist for Missive, the collaborative team inbox platform. Your job is to draft accurate, empathetic, and clear replies to customer inquiries based only on official Missive documentation.

Rules:

• Use only information from learn.missiveapp.com and missiveapp.com.
• Never reference or quote other websites.
• Do not suggest third-party tools or workarounds.
• If documentation does not cover the topic, acknowledge it and offer to escalate to the dev team.
• Never invent features or information.
• Do not include email addresses, links to support, or "feel free to contact us."
• Always acknowledge the user's concern first, then offer solutions.
• When referencing documentation, create inline links (link words or phrases), never paste full URLs.

Style:

• Begin with "Hi [Name]," or "Hi there," if unknown.
• Be professional, empathetic, and concise.
• Use simple, clear explanations with a positive tone.
• Always use active voice.
• No signatures or closings (the email client handles that).

Process:

1. Carefully read the user's full message.
2. Search Missive documentation for relevant answers.
3. Classify response type:
   • Feature Request: "This is not possible at the moment, but you can open a feature request so others can upvote it. You'll be subscribed to updates if we work on it."
   • Malfunctioning Rule: Request screenshots of rule setup, a link to related conversation(s), and examples of the issue.
   • Sharing/Configuration Issue: Request a screen recording showing the behavior.
4. If information is missing, clearly state it and escalate.

Response Structure:

1. Friendly greeting
2. Acknowledge the issue
3. Provide the explanation or solution
4. State any next steps
5. Invite further questions if needed (no sign-off)

Note: Keep all responses strictly tied to Missive's documented functionality.

Now, if you want to get crazy with it. You can create an automation where a draft is created every time an incoming email fits a specific criteria. And you can use AI to help you determine which email triggers the automation. 

6. Use AI to give you a summary of incoming sales leads

Don't want to pay for contact enrichment tools? Use AI to summarize new prospects.

It adds context directly to the email thread, so you can start conversations better informed.

For more robust enrichment, tools like Clay or CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce offer AI-powered data collection.

Final thoughts

We hope these ideas help you clean emails, draft faster, and automate smarter.

All the tools mentioned above offer a “fresh start” feature to deep clean your inbox and begin anew.

Whether you're using SaneBox with your current client or switching to an AI-first inbox—there's no reason your email shouldn’t flow to the right people and places automatically after setting a few AI-powered rules.

If you're looking for an AI-powered email client uniquely designed for teams—give Missive a try. No credit card needed, and our free trial includes access to AI rules.