Julianna Kim Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- My greatest career achievement has been my growth since beginning in this industry six years ago. I stumbled upon this industry and ended up in an interview with a temp company after replying to an administrative assistant position on Craigslist. After discussing my job history with the recruiter, they referred me to the multifamily housing sector, where I was assigned to a new takeover with an “up and coming” company at a community named Avenir Place. My first day was June 1st. This also happened to be the first day of our management transition from Riverstone to Mill Creek Residential and the first day of the month where rent was due with no online payment system. It was quite a first day, to say the least.
What started as a General Manager, Leasing Manager, and Leasing Consultant at a 249-unit community, grew to a 628 multi-phase, stabilized/lease-up with retail and metro with a team of 12. After one year as a Leasing Consultant I was promoted to an Assistant Community Manager at Modera Fairfax Ridge, a new multi-phase lease-up in the heart of Fairfax. We opened in December 2015 with no pre-leasing period and a six month delay in obtaining our COI for our second phase. While working out of a one-bedroom home with no amenities, we were able to achieve stabilization for Phase I in six months. We were able to achieve stabilization within 10 months for Phase II while simultaneously managing lease expirations in Phase I. As an Assistant Community Manager I was consistently maintained a delinquency of less than 2% and our community was in the top five of our company for Kingsley surveys. After two years I was then promoted to Community Manager.
As the Community Manager I was able to exceed budgeted revenue assumptions and produce additional savings in budgeted expenses each quarter. After one year I was then promoted to Community Manager of Modera Mosaic, a 473-unit multi-phase community that was undergoing lease-up in its second phase at the time of my transition. We were able to achieve lease-up in our second phase in 10 months while also increasing Gross Potential Rent in Phase I with lease expirations. Despite a month-long elevator outage, we were able to increase our ORA scores by 12 points, and had a 12% NOI growth from 2018 to 2019.
I was fortunate to be able to promote my Leasing Consultant to Assistant Community Manager at my previous community and in my current community I have had the honor of promoting two associates in 2019: one from Leasing Consultant to Assistant Manager and one from Assistant Service Manager to Service Manager. As someone who has been blessed with countless chances to succeed, it is my greatest pleasure to also grant opportunities to my associates in order to help them grow in their careers.
What is your ultimate career goal within the rental housing industry?
- My ultimate career goal is to work in Learning and Development and, more specifically, to establish a nationwide onboarding program to aide communities with promotions, new hires, and on-site management transitions. As someone who has worked at multiple communities in multiple roles, I have found that it can be quite difficult to transition to a new community in a new role simultaneously. Training new associates can be extremely difficult in our industry. Between residents and prospects, there is often little downtime in the workday to dedicate solely to onboarding. While e-learning tools are extremely beneficial to learning the how’s and why’s, I have found that one-on-one trainings are still best practice for learning the foundations of the roles onsite.
What's one rental housing trend you have your eye on?
- Internet technology has had the most tremendous impact on the rental housing industry. Gone are the days of paper lease files, paper applications, and scanning checks in the office. Phone applications and online portals have allowed ease of access for residents, prospects, and management to maintain and upkeep records. Outside of management systems, home systems, such as Nest and Google Home technology, can also be controlled remotely through phones. As a result of all of these technological advances, accountability for management is at an all-time high. With continuing advances in Internet technology, residents and prospects are more informed and the amount of transparency required by management has increased tenfold. Such transparency allows management representatives to offer customer service techniques that go above and beyond the standard misconception that we are simply here to collect rent.
Additionally, I would love to see how our industry will be able to utilize Internet technology to combat the challenges faced with the rise of online shopping and deliveries. For controlled access communities, package deliveries are an increasing source frustration for residents, management, and couriers alike. Locker systems are fantastic in theory, however, space is limited, machinery can break, and the overhead costs can be quite astronomical.