There are several different avenues that may lead one to a property management career. Your background may be in real estate, finance, law, or marketing. Or you may simply find yourself wanting to utilize certain qualities or characteristics, such as dealing with people on a consistent basis, problem solving, or multi-tasking. In real estate, elements of all of these professional areas and personal skill sets will come into play. While you don’t have to be a master of all of them (or any of them, for that matter), you do have to possess the willingness to learn certain specific tasks. For example, you don’t have to be a finance whiz to be a real estate pro, but you do have to perform accounting functions; likewise, you don’t have to have a law degree, but you must have a solid grasp on local, state, and federal laws and regulations to ensure your property is always in compliance.
Do you know you want to get into real estate but don’t know what your options are? Real estate positions come in all shapes and sizes. You can be self-employed handling only your own property or you can oversee multiple units for a third party. You can be an operations manager, maintenance supervisor, or regional portfolio engineer.
Where do you actually go to learn about real estate and arm yourself with the skills necessary to enter into the field? Here are a couple of resources for starting your property management career on the right foot.
IREM: Institute of Real Estate Management
Obtaining industry-specific knowledge is a great way to market yourself to potential customers and, also, to ensure that you have a solid education and grasp on the field. IREM offers a catalog of classes that include everything from professional ethics to on-site maintenance to fair housing. A wide variety of online offerings allows you to take these classes from the comfort of your own home.
BOMA: Building Owners and Managers Association International
BOMA offers both new and veteran real estate professionals the opportunity to build both basic knowledge and area-specific expertise. Whether you’re looking to learn about the basics of real estate management or to educate yourself on energy efficiency programs, BOMA has you covered. Like IREM, they have online offerings as well as audio seminars, which can be attended by phone.
Real estate is one of the few fields that allows professionals to use a wide variety of skill sets, keeping work interesting on a day-to-day basis. If you think real estate might just be for you, the resources above are a great place to start.
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