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The Albuquerque Metro Chapter was founded in June of 1999 as the Local Chapter of NARPM for the state of New Mexico. The challenges for our chapter, is to get our name out in front of the property management companies and to help raise the level of education and professionalism in the industry here in New Mexico.
The number one complaint received by the New Mexico Real Estate commission is from the area of the property management. In order to try and reduce the number of complaints the Real Estate commission made a number of changes to the rules that govern Property Management in the state. The goal of the changes was to raise the level of education, expertise and professionalism in the area of property management. We had 3 of our members sitting on the committee of 11members . The recommendations from the committee were presented in mid-2018 and while not all were adopted a great number were, with increased continuing education requirements for Property Management being one of the big ones.
How does that impact our chapter growth?
One of the things our chapter had done when we saw the increased focus on education by the New Mexico Real Estate Commission was to work with the state regulators to get all of the NARPM classes approved for continuing education credits for each property manager that is licensed by the state. We can now take a class at Broker/Owner, convention or online or at a state or regional chapter and get continuing education credits for license renewal. Our members, Chelsey Karr, Kristen Johnson, Shawn Johnson worked for almost one year to get this approved by the state regulators. Without volunteers like this and their commitment none of this would have happened.
This has opened the door for a major recruitment drive for our chapter. The question was how do we take advantage of it? Our plan for the next two years is to offer classes with continuing education credits of 15 to 18 hours each year. All of our paid members will be able to take these classes at NO COST to them. We have scheduled 3 more classes for 2019 with one of them being the NARPM Ethics class.
We have changed our budget and enhanced of affiliate membership areas to help pay for the new class offerings. We have moved our monthly meetings to the offices of the Apartment Association of New Mexico, so we can now accommodate as many as 40 people for a meeting, and our meetings are on the same day of the month and in the same location now. Is it working? In August of 2018 we had 8 members, at the meeting in March of 2019 we had 36 people with 6 guests, after April’s meeting, we had 16 members and 3 guests present. We currently have 40 paid members and are growing.
Our members are bringing guests, but that is not the only method of finding potential new members. The change in the rules made by The Real Estate Commission has made the education providers. The local Board of Realtors and others focus on classes for Property Management. I have taken a couple of these classes and always ask the instructor if I can do a 1 minute commercial at some point during the class. Last time I did that, I got 25 business cards from other students that wanted more information about NARPM.
We are currently exploring joining the Board of Realtors as am affiliated members (cust;150.00 /year). By doing this we have the opportunity to sponsor education classes that are offered by the Board. I am also in the process of contacting the education providers about possibly making a short presentation to their classes as well.
Can we provide value to our member’s? YES!!
By providing 15 to 18 hours of C.E credit worthy classes to our members, (value avg. 15.00/per hour of CE 225.00 a year) lunch is provided at each meeting so we do not wait for lunch orders (10.00 avg. cost of lunch for 12 meetings = 120.00). This is a total cost savings to our members of 345.00 a year. This covers the cost of National AND the local dues.
Our members feel that if they miss a meeting they are really missing out. One of our members is proud to say that he comes away from every meeting with something new to use in his business.
Will this help keep our current members? Yes! We are seeing members come to meetings for the first time in several years and they are thankful for the chapter and the support.
What do we have to look forward to? We are forming a committee to put together a 1 day management symposium for late 2020.
I must say a huge thank you to our RVP Liz Cleyman and her ambassador Kristen Johnson. Without their help and support none of this would be possible. Your RVP and Ambassadors are an asset to be used and will be a great help for you as you go through the year.
Push yourself and your chapter to grow like you’ve never seen. See you in Phoenix in October.