A senior homeownership manager has the dual role of managing staff and dealing with tenants.
A line manager for the rent collectors and right-to-buy sales team, his or her job varies from filling in forms and meeting deadlines to dealing with staff problems and helping tenants out of debt.
A very busy person, then?
The hours are usually nine to five, Monday to Friday, but as Claire Gunn, senior homeownership manager at Moat Housing Group, puts it: "If the phone rings at five to five, you stay and answer it."
What qualities do you need?
"An eye for detail", says Gunn, "good management skills and the ability to pacify irate customers."
What are the best bits?
Gunn and her team help tenants deal with their debt and liaise with creditors and this can be very rewarding. She says: "Some people have £50,000 or £60,000 worth of debt. They really need assistance and if they work with us, we can keep them in their homes.
"So we know we're doing something good to help people who want to help themselves."
When we help tenants deal with debt, we know we’re doing something good to help people who want to help themselves
Claire Gunn, senior homeownership manager, Moat Housing Group
But there must be a downside, too.
Yes indeed – you need to be able to keep your cool under pressure and take the odd insult. "You have to learn not to take the abuse personally," says Gunn.
"Nobody likes to receive a letter telling them they have to pay their rent arrears. But if you let them slam the phone down and come back later when they have thought about it, they're normally happy to come to an arrangement."
And dealing with right-to-buy sales means ploughing through stacks of forms and liaising with lawyers. "Meeting all the deadlines that are set with right-to-buy and right-to-acquire is the biggest challenge," says Gunn.
"There are set time limits for each stage in the process, so I have to make sure my team get all the information they need from other departments."
Source
Housing Today
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