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IREM insider / Personally Speaking
An Asset
Management
Primer
Thinking about a career shift from property management to
asset management? Randy Ferreira, CPM, has some advice on
the subject. Ferreira, managing partner of Blue Rock Partners
LLC, in Tampa, is an investor with about 9,000 units in Florida
and Alabama. Since founding his firm a decade ago, he’s focused
almost exclusively on the value-add space.
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jpm
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PHOTO © SERGEY NIVENS
By John Salustri,
contributing writer for JPM®
RANDY FERREIRA, CPM / IREM insider
Education First
Matching Personalities to Properties
“First is education,” said Ferreira.
“Asset management and property
management are two different professions, and there are many courses
that IREM offers that I’ve taken myself.” Courses that can help wannabe
asset managers over the all-important learning curve and help you define your aptitude for the discipline.
Here’s the essential difference:
“From a property management
standpoint, you essentially follow
the budget,” he said. “From an asset
management standpoint, that’s just
the beginning of identifying and executing the investment group’s business plan, especially when you’re
dealing with value-add. One has to
be tied to the other.”
Hiring is also not simply tapping the right person for the right position, but
aligning the proper mentality to the appropriate asset. “Each asset, especially
in the value-add sector, has its own idiosyncrasies,” said Ferreira. Sometimes,
depending on the locale, that could be cultural, sometimes it’s just an age thing.
Older properties have their specific issues, he said. It doesn’t necessarily take a
more experienced manager to deal with those issues but it does take someone
“who is creative enough to make that property perform more successfully and
tune it to the overall investment goal.”
Of course, there are good asset managers and there are great asset managers,
said Ferreira, and what sets the two apart—and what enables the asset manager
to execute the business plan properly—is communication. “You have to stay
very close to the investors and their needs,” he said. “You have to get intimately
involved with them to understand specifically what they’re trying to accomplish in terms of both their short-term and long-term financial goals. So, regular communication with the investment group is absolutely key, whether it’s
good news or bad news. Most investors truly appreciate that communication.”
The Catch-22 Career Shift
You need a job to gain experience,
but experience is necessary to gaining a job. Ferreira said he looks for
commitment and loyalty in addition
to the obvious skills and experience
necessary to fill the position. The
good news here is that “It needn’t
be a 20-year tenure,” he said, “but
at least a long-enough time, three to
five years, to prove that the candidate can stay at a company.”
But there’s more to hiring than
just the numbers. It’s an overall sense
of the person being considered, the
measure of the professional, if you
will. “It’s tough to judge a person by
their resume,” he said. “Sometimes
they’re fantastic, then when you get
a person in you say, ‘Wow, that was
not what I was expecting.’” And, of
course, it works the other way as
well, and a weak résumé can sometimes mask a true talent.
Intimacy is Indispensable
That intimacy is key especially as various markets around the country start
exploring their post-recessionary potential. In the Southeast, said Ferreira, the
rebound is evident, or as he puts it, “the coffee isn’t brewed yet, but its percolating.” And public and private investors alike, with a variety of acquisition and
disposition strategies and a thirst for different asset types, are being lured to
the aroma. “There are a lot more groups willing to take the risk of investing in
properties here that have a value-add play.”
Blue Rock itself is experiencing a shift in strategies, and Ferreira reported
that his shop is once again very active after the recessionary need to pull back
and “be very conservative.” Depending on where in the country your market
is, a sensitivity to the investors’ post-recessionary mindset—and the awareness
that it might be in the midst of change—is key, underscoring once again the
need for tight, regular communication.
It’s a good time for career growth, said Ferreira, as the industry as a whole
grows. Like the Southeast, most markets around the map are in one stage of
rebound or another. “We have a window through 2015 that will remain open
as long as interest rates stay low,” he said. And market expansion is a great platform on which to expand your career.
RANDY X. FERREIRA, CPM, ([email protected]) IS
MANAGING PARTNER OF BLUE ROCK PARTNERS LLC IN TAMPA.
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