Leasing Consultant

Leasing is a skills game. The people who do it well aren't just friendly. They read a prospect quickly, adjust their pitch without being manipulative, handle a "I need to think about it" without desperation, and still find time to follow up on six other leads before lunch. That's the core of what Hawthorne Residential Partners is hiring for at their Atlanta community.

The Skills This Role Runs On

Every day, you're using a short stack of skills repeatedly: active listening, objection handling, written communication, and basic sales discipline. Conducting personalized tours is less about memorizing floor plans and more about figuring out what matters to the person standing in front of you. Is it the commute? The closet space? The dog-friendliness? You ask, you listen, and you connect the dots out loud for them.

Beyond tours, you're processing leasing applications, completing move-in paperwork accurately, and tracking your own follow-up pipeline. The paperwork isn't glamorous, but a missed step during move-in creates problems that ripple into the resident's entire tenure. Precision matters here, not just personality.

You'll also help coordinate resident events and community engagement efforts. These aren't optional extras. They're how a property builds the kind of retention that keeps occupancy healthy without relying entirely on new traffic and concessions.

What Separates a Good Leasing Consultant from a Great One

The honest answer is follow-up discipline. Most prospects don't lease on the first visit. The consultants who convert at a high rate are the ones with a consistent, non-annoying system for staying in touch after a tour. They're also the ones who actually know the competing properties in the submarket, because a prospect asking "how does this compare to the place down the street?" deserves a real answer, not a deflection.

One more thing worth knowing: this schedule includes Saturdays, and resident events can occasionally push into evenings. That's the nature of leasing. If your weekends are completely off-limits, this role will create friction. If you're flexible and like the trade-off of a weekday off during the week, it tends to work well.

Building a Career Here

Hawthorne has a formal career path program, and the Leasing Consultant role is a recognized entry point into property management leadership. The natural next step is Assistant Community Manager, where the skills shift toward operations, financials, and team coordination. The leasing experience you build here, particularly around occupancy management and resident relations, translates directly into that next level.

• High school diploma or GED required; one year of customer service or sales experience preferred
• Valid driver's license required
• CALP certification is a plus but not required on day one
• Total target compensation around $55,000, including hourly pay plus monthly leasing and renewal commissions
• Benefits include medical, dental, vision, 401k match, paid time off, pet insurance, and paid parental leave

Hawthorne is one of the larger Southeast-rooted multifamily operators in the country. If you want a company with enough structure to support your growth but enough regional identity to actually feel like something, that combination is harder to find than it sounds.