June Chapter Spotlight: Northern Virginia Chapter

Please allow me to describe our chapter to you by letting you know how my association with it began. About ten years ago, I received a call from someone who wanted to have her property professionally managed by a NARPM^® property manager. I had never heard of this group before and tried to downplay the importance of this requirement. Her attorney said this was non-negotiable, so I lost the chance to manage this property because of my ignorance of NARPM^®.

Immediately following this call, I looked up NARPM^® and was amazed at the services and education it offered to its members. I signed up soon after and visited my local chapter meeting the very next Wednesday. While anticipating all that I read on the national NARPM^® website, I was completely underwhelmed. The main point of discussion apparently was if and how to disassociate this chapter from NARPM^®. The speaker intimated that we could get along better without them. In my opinion, the leadership was weak and did not put forth any real effort to capitalize on our national association. But somehow the chapter survived this close call for mutiny!

As the chapter meetings pressed on, we would occasionally stumble upon an informative, relevant session where members would leave satisfied that the 90-minute meeting was worth their time. However, in the past few years, meetings have become more interesting. As I studied the reason why, I noticed a distinct correlation between good and proactive leadership and good and fulfilling meetings. Finally, I thought, we have a good thing going now and vendors started paying to attend. NARPM^® standards were being noticed and attained, and our leaders began to earn designations, which in turn led to other property managers finding value in attending.

I volunteered my time and enthusiasm because I wanted to carry on the NARPM^® momentum by attending as many national and state meetings as possible, eventually leading me to President of the local chapter. I set three goals for our chapter to attain in 2018:

1. Double the size of the chapter.

2. Respect and refer our venders.               

3. Fill the 90-minute meeting with useful and relevant information so that all attendees would agree that the local NARPM^® chapter meeting was their best use of time for that time slot.

Our meetings start on time and end when I say so. Don’t get the wrong impression, however. Members who used to leave early now stay to the very end and beyond because the content and agenda are too compelling to leave early. I’ve got witnesses!

Although we do not have committees just yet, there are property managers and vendors ready to assume leadership duties when asked. First, we had to collect names of members and vendors from several different and incomplete lists so that we could have one completely accurate list. Second, I have no clue as to how we were found to be chapter compliant based on the outdated documents and paperwork associated with this chapter, so we are still working on becoming truly chapter compliant. I would love to hand off a fully and accurately accounted for list of members in a completely compliant format to the next president. Our board is proactive and stands ready to support our chapter whenever needed.

As for growth, our normal number of attendance has risen to near capacity in our meeting space. Property managers are inviting other property managers and vendors are inviting other vendors. I feel the chapter health is better now than it has been in recent years, and I think that we have more serious vendors and property managers, too. Occasionally, I put it out on Facebook that I would like to meet property managers and it never fails that real estate agents all have their favorites. I simply take those names, contact them, and invite them to one of our chapter meetings. I speak to them about how to join NARPM^® and how we follow a Code of Ethics similar to that of the National Association of REALTORS^® (NAR).

We are not perfect, nor are we done with growth, referrals, ethics, business development, education, and all the other things NARPM^® affords us. I would like to encourage more of our members to attend national meetings and get involved at a deeper level. It is my intent to ratchet things up to another level and continue to demonstrate the myriad of advantages we truly have by being associated with the National Association of Residential Property Managers.

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