Her Story
About brenda
I've been in property management for about 7 years now. I started when I was looking for work and was finally given the opportunity with a small company to work as an admin there. I just kind of fell in love with the industry of property management. For me, work is always a stress reliever - it's more controllable chaos than when you can't control things out of your daily life, so it was always nice to always be busy. I started off as an admin doing very basic, simple stuff like scanning checks, helping property managers with showings, and scheduling maintenance. It was a very small company of about 5 people. After COVID hit, I worked from home, and my father-in-law passed away, so I was working crazy hours with this small company. When you work from home, you don't realize there's a clock in and clock off button, and you just kind of keep going. I ended up leaving there and went to Sunrise Management, where I was for about 4 years. I absolutely loved the people who worked there, it was amazing. I left because I wanted more growth, and sometimes when you're pretty good at your position, you kind of feel stuck and you feel like you're not moving forward, you're not moving backwards, you're not moving. So it was a hard decision to leave the company, but I left there and took a little bit of time off to start studying for my real estate exam. Then I went to F&S to work as a maintenance coordinator because I can't handle the downtime of just trying to stay at home. From F&S, I got an opportunity at Casa Familiar to be maintenance coordinator there, and they let go of that position, so I was kind of stumbling around. Right now, I'm working for a smaller company, I work from home, and I'm like a property manager. I view over probably like 10 properties and overview maintenance. It's a small team, a small company. The ownership is awesome, I get to deal with the day-to-day issues, talk about everything that goes from rent collecting to 3 days to unit terms, new properties that are taken on, vacancies and stuff like that. It's kind of keeping me busy, and I absolutely love it. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. I'm continuing to grow and learn. I finished my classes already and have my test program to take my real estate exam so I can continue to grow and learn. I feel like you're never too old to continue or start something new. It's been a very interesting journey since I got into property management, kind of way later than other people.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with brenda
01What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's important to social network and get yourself out there. Before, I used to be a person that would think, like, oh, well, just hard work evolves. But no, it's also a lot of being able to be open to meeting people, talking to people, and putting yourself out there. And that is sometimes scary. It's like a job interview - you just never know how people are gonna see you, but it doesn't matter how people see you. It matters how you see yourself and the value you give yourself. I think the self-value and the value of just the community support is super awesome. I absolutely believe in getting back into the community. I always tell my kids, like, you got - it's never too late to start, it's never too late to learn something, it's never too late to be like, you know what, I gotta do this for myself. I feel like you're never too old to continue or start something new.
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