CAI-NJ July 2021

Attracting and Retaining Qualified Property Managers By Robert Arnone, AMS, CPM ® RCA Management, LLC

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T hroughout the article, when referring to the hiring of a property manager, it does not refer to a spe- cific property management company. While you continue to read, don’t expect to find the secret sauce on hiring and retaining talent. The article is more of a journey of some of the thoughts and obstacles property managers and companies hiring them encounter along the way. Call it fortuitous, but I received a call from a staffing company in the midst of writing this article. Hello, I am calling from ‘blank’, with a job opportunity as property manager calling for a prominent owner of Medical Offices. After a brief chuckle, I mentioned to this engag- ing fellow that it is not something I am interested in, but maybe we can help each other. I said I was writing an article about finding talent in property management. Now I won’t bore you with the details of our conver- sation, but he did go on to send the qualification require- ments, pay, and other information you typically find in a job applicant posting. I did change the job location because it was not in New Jersey or New York, for that

matter, but an example of the reach that companies will go to find a qualified property manager. Job Title: Property Manager Job Type: Permanent Job Location: Your dream location What was also listed were job responsibilities, required knowledge, skills and abilities, education, experience, and salary. I quickly went from the hunter to be being hunted. Property management deals with various types of real estate. Residential, broken into multi-family and commu- nity association management, which the reader is famil- iar. Multi-family rentals, industrial, commercial, all the way to graduating into the property management/asset management/portfolio manager. For the sake of this article, when mentioning condo associations, it will also refer to cooperatives. A different type of ownership but typically managed by a company with a condo associ- ation portfolio. So how does a managing agent looking to attract the top talent compete in these markets? CONT I NU E S ON PAGE 30

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