B.C. facing a critical shortage of strata property managers, industry says | 24CA News
British Columbia is going through an acute scarcity of property managers as a rising variety of individuals make their properties in strata properties.
More than 1.5 million individuals are estimated to stay in B.C.’s 30,000 strata properties.
But discovering individuals to handle these properties is getting more and more troublesome, in accordance B.C.’s Condominium Home Owners Association (CHOA).
“We could easily use 200 or 300 managers in the industry tomorrow and it probably wouldn’t fill the gaps,” CHOA govt director Tony Gioventu advised Global News.
“It is getting dire, and it’s not just B.C., it’s across the country.”
In British Columbia, strata property managers should be licensed, a course of that includes passing an examination and a legal file test.
But the method doesn’t finish there. Because the job is so complicated, licensees nonetheless want one other six months to a 12 months of coaching and supervision earlier than they’re ready to handle on their very own, in accordance with these contained in the business.
Along with the fundamentals of constructing operations and upkeep, mangers should even be accustomed to a stack of rules and laws, together with the B.C. Strata Act, the Residential Tenancy Act, the B.C. Human Rights Code, strata bylaws and B.C.’s civil decision tribunal.
“We can’t just go out to the street and say hey, you look like a great strata manager and start them tomorrow. What we need to do is have more people licensed,” Chris Churchill, president of FirstService Residential mentioned.
“Once they’re licensed, they still can’t manage properties. They still need at least six months to a year actively managing either in a mentorship or a training program … and what that does is allow someone to properly manage properties in a full capacity.”
Churchill mentioned the business is already working at about 50 per cent capability. Making issues worse, about half of the province’s present crop of strata managers are child boomers who’re inside 5 years of retirement, he mentioned.
On prime of that, managers are coping with new problems just like the province’s transfer to permit rental in most strata properties, all whereas the scale of buildings will increase.
Those bigger buildings imply mangers who might historically tackle a portfolio of as much as a dozen smaller properties are restricted to dealing with 4 or 5.
The result’s a rising variety of strata companies who merely don’t have a supervisor, leaving the job within the fingers of their strata council or volunteers.
“What ends up happening is you have improper maintenance, deferred maintenance, the buildings simply aren’t being upkept the way they should be, because they don’t have that voice of experience helping them out,” he mentioned.
Both Churchill and Gioventu say the business wants assist with recruitment and coaching if the issue is to be solved.
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“We need the help to be able to attract people to this industry so that all of these beautiful buildings going up can have proper representation,” Churchill mentioned.
“We also need help with education. The buildings going up are much more complex, so we need help to get new strata managers up and going … and lastly we need training grants.”
Gioventu mentioned he’d prefer to see a program added to one in all B.C.’s technical faculties that educates and trains strata property managers earlier than they take their licensing examination, in order that they’re job prepared day one.
“We need to find a way of capturing graduates whoa re coming out of high school and are looking for a career choice,” he mentioned. “This is really a great career, but it needs to be well supported.”
B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon was not obtainable for an interview on the subject.
In a press release, B.C.’s Ministry of Housing mentioned the scarcity of managers existed previous to the province’s modifications round strata rental restrictions, however mentioned it was monitoring the brand new rules implementation and their results.
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