Using Transferable Skills Within Property

Working in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) develops skills and experience that can be transferred successfully to other areas of property – for example Housing Associations who, in addition to social rent, are also involved in the PRS through the provision of Mid Market Rental (MMR) properties.

In this article, we detail the journey of one of our ex-candidates, Christine, as she moved from employment within the PRS to a Housing Association which also had a Mid Market Rent portfolio:

Christine worked in Private Sector Residential Letting / Property Management for 7 years.  Whilst she progressed with each company, gaining more experience in each role, she realised her options moving forward were to:

  • become a property manager with a wage ceiling of approx 25k
  • start her own letting business with all the stresses and strains involved

OR

  • move in a new, but still property related direction.

She thought about what jobs may be essentially similar but perhaps have more opportunity for development and progression within a fixed structure towards higher earnings and pension benefits.

Christine knew a couple of people who worked for a Housing Association which sounded interesting so she sought out housing related courses through the Chartered Institute of Housing. She took a 9 month level 3 Course through open learning which gave an excellent overview of working for a Housing Association.

One year after completing the course she moved to a large letting agency to get a feel for working within a bigger organisation.

Around this time, Christine became aware of Mid Market Rent (MMR) and applied for a job at Port of Leith Housing Association (PoLHA). MMR is essentially private rental sector work therefore Christine’s skills were fully transferable. The role required a strong understanding of letting and property management and is split between all aspects of MMR (3 days) and the Customer Service Team (2 days) within POLHA.

Christine’s new Line Manager was attracted to her background and experience within the private rented sector, her commercial awareness and the new ideas she could bring to the team.

Christine enjoys the high levels of support which PoLHA offers to all staff, the level of training and the structure – especially Flexitime! Overall she feels she has found her dream job which has an energising variety of work. She is excited to be involved at this early stage of a developing market tenure.

Her advice to anyone hoping to transfer from the private rented sector is to do your homework and find out about the work involved within housing associations in order to smooth the transition.

If you feel like a change within the world of letting / property management and would like to discuss your options then please feel free to send us your CV.