On the first Wednesday of this month The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) celebrated New Zealand’s first National Property Managers Day. It was a day to reflect and recognise the resilience and dedication of property managers across the country.
This event allowed the Irelands team and fellow property managers an opportunity to acknowledge their colleagues hard work over recent years and an occasion to share their experiences with one another. The past decade offered a heap of highlights and a cascade of challenges.
Let’s start with the challenges. Certainly, the earthquake damage that occurred to our client’s properties opened a plethora of issues, from complicated property repairs, exasperated by worker shortages and drawn out by lengthy compensation processes, to dilemmas resulting from Covid, tested many in the industry. The general level of professionalism and support demonstrated by property managers during the apex of these crises is a testament of the character of many at the coal face. But we don’t want to dwell on these traumatic periods for too long so let’s shift our reflection on the high points over these past years.
Professionalism, a quality many in this industry strive for. Recent amendments to legislation in our sector offer improved clarity on best practice for processes around some our most challenging management issues. These legislation revisions facilitate professional conduct in our industry. One such significant piece of work is the healthy homes standard that has been gradually taking effect since 1 July of last year. These requirements have introduced plenty of extra work for our members in the industry as we train our staff and update our procedures and systems. Ultimately by achieving high levels of understanding on the correct processes involved and by developing good processes we can take pride in the knowledge that we played a crucial part for laying the foundation for elevated levels of professionalism.
Any work that strives to improve the quality of living for our tenants and improve the condition of our landlord’s properties is certainly a step in the right direction. With these improved standards working through our industry, professional conduct ensues, industry reputation rises and with this relationships undoubtably improve.
Relationships, one of (if not) the most important component of success in our careers. These past years have provided the ultimate test for relationship management between our tenants and landlords. With extraordinary circumstances pushing some to the limit. As the dust settles, we can reflect on the relationships we forged during our most difficult times and appreciate the bonds cemented from these events. It’s humbling to hear some of these stories from our members and the lifelong connections some undoubtedly developed over these past years. With these times behind us we can look forward to continuing the quality services we strive to serve at the highest level of professionalism.
Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash