Do Renters Prefer Text or a Phone Call?

Renter surveys have moved toward text. Buildium's 2022 report put email first at 48%, with text 37% and phone 35%; by May 2024 it reported 59% of renters wanting to text their property manager. In a separate 2025 survey of 1,800 US consumers, SMS was the least-ignored channel at 8%; phone calls the most, at 42%.

Is There a Published Number for Renter Channel Preference?

There is, and it moved. In its 2022 State of the Property Management Industry Report, Buildium said "renters of all ages prefer to be contacted by email (preferred by 48% of respondents), with text messages and phone calls coming in second (37% and 35% respectively)." Three years later, in May 2024, the same team led with the opposite: "59% of renters want to communicate with their property manager via text message," with "just under half" still saying email works and "nearly as many" open to a phone call, "and that number is on the rise."

Scope it before you use it. Both write-ups come from one company's own renter surveys, credited only to "the thousands we survey each year": no sample size, question wording or fielding dates on either page. Both measure renters talking to the manager they already have, not a stranger answering a listing at 9 p.m. Other renter-messaging figures exist (see how to handle text-message rental leads), but these two are the closest verifiable head-to-head, and the ranking flipped inside three years.

Who Is Actually Reachable by Text?

Almost everyone, which is where channel arguments go wrong. Pew's Mobile Fact Sheet, from 5,022 US adults fielded February 5 to June 18, 2025, puts cellphone ownership at 99% of 18-to-29-year-olds and 95% of adults 65 and older. Smartphone ownership is the row that matters for anything app-based: 78% at 65 and over, with 16% of that group owning a cellphone that is not a smartphone. Those phones take calls and texts but cannot run an app, so a chat-only flow filters them out.

Which Channel Do People Actually Ignore?

Here the numbers cut against the leasing habit. State of Business Texting 2025 (1,800 US adults fielded in March 2025 through the Pollfish panel, commissioned by business-texting platform Textmagic) asked "Which channel do you ignore the most?" Phone calls took 42% of the single-choice answers. SMS took 8%, the lowest of the five channels tested, below email at 16%. It also asked "Why have you ignored a business text?": 41% weren't interested, 39% weren't sure the message was legitimate (54% among respondents 65 and older), and 6.5% meant to reply and forgot, rising to 15% of 18-to-24s.

Scope this one hard too. It asks US consumers about business texts in general, not renters about listings; both questions were single-selection, so a figure is the one channel or reason a person picked, not an independent rate; and the panel is opt-in, which the report itself calls "directional." Its publisher sells texting, which biases it against the finding.

So What Do You Do When a Text Goes Quiet?

Not "pick up the phone." That is the standard advice, and it was our own instinct until we read the ignore numbers: the phone is the most-ignored channel in that survey, 42% against 8% for SMS. The fix is the message, not the medium. Disinterest and doubt that the text is real are both untouched by a second identical text. Name your company and the address they asked about in the first line, so there is something to verify, and keep the phone as one attempt, not the rescue.

The rest is staffing: most portfolios cover the channel easiest to staff, not the one the renter used. An AI leasing system that answers by text, chat and phone (the phone side handled by an AI voice agent) in about 30 seconds, 24/7, removes the choice. Book a demo to see one inquiry handled across all three.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do renters prefer text or phone calls?

Published renter surveys point to text. Buildium's 2022 report ranked email first at 48%, with text 37% and phone 35%; by May 2024 it reported 59% of renters wanting to text their property manager. For consumers generally, a 2025 survey of 1,800 US adults found SMS the least-ignored channel at 8% and phone calls the most-ignored at 42%.

What should a property manager do if a renter doesn't respond to a text?

Don't just call. In that 2025 survey of 1,800 US adults, phone calls were the most-ignored channel at 42% and SMS the least at 8%. The reasons given for ignoring a business text were disinterest (41%) and doubt it was legitimate (39%). Re-send with your company name and the property address, not the same message again.

Which channels actually reach older renters?

Pew's 2025 Mobile Fact Sheet puts cellphone ownership at 95% among adults 65 and older and smartphone ownership at 78%: 16% own a cellphone that isn't a smartphone. Text and voice reach that group; an app-based chat widget may not. In the separate 2025 business-texting survey of US adults, that age group was also the likeliest to ignore a business text over doubts it was legitimate, at 54%.