Property Management – West Hills

West Hills Property Management

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Skills for Effective Property Management

All the Right Stuff

How then, are these people identified, hired and put to task? The answer is twofold: some people are born with these extraordinary skills, and some acquire them from years of experience. Either way, the list of skills property managers use to keep residents and board alike happy and day-to-day operations of a homeowners association (HOA) running smoothly include an unprecedented ability to organize, coupled with attention to detail that would leave Martha Stewart reeling.

Nuts and Bolts

According to Rick Fry, a principal with RCP Management in Princeton, the diverse alliance of skills that come together to make a good property manager can be divided into a basic hierarchy—parts of which are put into practice every single day, while others simply make the job easier when unforeseen crises arise.

The first set of skills covers the absolute basics: reading, writing, and simple arithmetic. According to Fry, while it may seem obvious, good writing skills and the ability to easily translate one’s thoughts onto paper or e-mail is an important tool good managers put to use all the time. A managing agent unable to communicate clearly in writing will find him—or herself frustrated, and will likely frustrate his or her clients as well.

Paul Santoriello, PKM, the president of Taylor Management in Morristown, and chairman of the Community Associations Institute (CAI)’s Political Action Committee agrees. “You need to have the ability to communicate. That is what we do—we don’t cut grass, we don’t hammer any nails; we are the great communicators. We communicate with everybody from the unit owner to the board to the vendors to the municipalities. So strong verbal and written communication skills are a must for a good manager.”

In addition to certain very basic skills, Fry feels that it’s incumbent upon managers to have a very strong understanding of their community’s physical plant: the basic structure of the units that make it up, their HVAC networks, electrical schema, and so forth. A manager doesn’t need to know how to reassemble a boiler from scratch, says Fry, but someone with a good working knowledge of how that boiler operates can converse more confidently with contractors and repair and maintenance professionals. A knowledgeable manager also knows just who to call if something goes wrong and needs work, and can tell repair technicians exactly where the problem lies.

People Persons

Given that such a large part of any involved manager’s day is taken up with face-to-face interactions with the people who live in an HOA, good interpersonal skills are a must for any successful property manager.

According to Fry, a manager needs “a strong ability to empathize when you’re being confronted sometimes by angry people who aren’t angry with you, per se, but with the situation.” Managers facing upset, sometimes hostile residents or homeowners have to develop a thick skin—without becoming jaded or inured to the plight and problems of others.

“They way you treat others is a direct reflection of the pride and care you take in your job,” says Santoriello. “You have to be understanding, and be a leader rather than a follower.”