Wanted: Community Association Managers

The building boom across the U.S. has created many shortages in materials and personnel. In some regions of our country, there is a severe shortage of experienced community managers to deal with the explosion in the numbers of community associations being created. Management companies have developed their own individual strategy to cope with this shortage with varying degrees of success. However, the demand for managers does not appear to be subsiding.

The Community Associations Institute (CAI) tells us on their website that 14,000 new community associations are estimated to be formed in 2005, representing 1.3 million housing units in the United States . The National Association of Home Builders predicts that housing starts will decline by approximately 5% in 2006 and another 5% in 2007 over 2005 levels. If these projections come true, 25,000 new communities associations will be formed in 2006 and 2007. These new communities associations will generate the need for approximately 2500 new community managers.

The immediate challenge facing the individual management company is to locate and train new managers needed to manage new clients. Today's strategy will probably contain various combinations of the following:

• Assign new communities to existing managers.
  
  
• Recruit managers from competing management companies.
  
  
• Recruit mangers from other parts of the country.
  
  
• Recruit managers from parallel service industries.
  
  
• Recruit retired professionals.
  
  
• Recruit college and high school graduates.

Once the management company has hired the new manager candidate, one must recognize that education of the specifics of community associations is critical to the manager's success.

Community Management Corporation of Fairfax, VA (CMC), our parent company, manages over 180 communities containing 70,000 homes in the Washington DC Metro region. CMC recognized the manager shortage problem several years ago. The firm was early to identify needs of new community managers and to develop programs to address those needs.

For instance, for each new manager, CMC provides:

• Community Associations Institute's Professional Development Manager Program courses by video teleconferencing for managers, paid by CMC.
  
  
• In-house daily classes on the specific disciplines required to be a community manager such as insurance, accounting, governence, communication, etc, taught by experienced managers.
  
  
• Assignment of each new manager to an experienced manger who provides guidance and direction.
  
  
• Outside professionals to assist the managers deal with the stresses that are specific to the industry.
  
  
• Approximately 40 hours of orientation to all new managers covering all aspects of the company's operations.
  
  
• Invitation to service providers to conduct seminars for all managerial staff.

CMC also recognized that educating the support staff would improve the quality of service to the client and improve the success rate of the new managers. CMC provided customer service training for all staff members and they hired a professional to administer such.

These programs have been developed and implemented at a substantial cost to CMC. Other larger management companies have probably made similar kinds of accommodations to meet their demand for new managers. While some of these costs may be absorbed by the management companies, it is inevitable that the cost of these programs must be absorbed through the only revenue generating source available to management companies - - that is, the management fees paid by community associations.

While the individual management companies continue to ‘grow' their own managers, there needs to be a long term plan developed. The long term plan needs to include new avenues for attracting and educating new community managers. Community Associations Institute, (“CAI”), seems to be the logical institution to take the lead in these endeavors.

The long term plan could include an emphasis on attracting people to our industry and making them aware that community management is a viable career path. A nationwide marketing effort could be introduced to the public.

The long term plan could include CAI chapters and individual management companies persuading local universities and colleges to expand their degree programs to include community management courses of study. CAI could expand their current curriculum in their professional management development program into college level courses. Management companies could agree to employ the students in these programs as interns so that they would be able to practice the skills that they are learning in the classroom.

Another approach that the plan could address is to encourage local management companies to pool their resources with CAI to establish a trade school in their respective area. The trade school could cater to communities who are willing to be managed by student managers for a reduced management fee. The participating management companies could volunteer their managers as teachers and mentors to the students. The trade schools might also include developing administrative staff as well.

Regardless of who is involved and how it is achieved, it seems clear for the foreseeable future that the community association management industry needs to develop a system capable of developing 2,000 to 3,000 manager candidates per year. What a great time for those seeking a new and exciting career!