PM Collective - The ART of property management
Aug 9, 2026 · 27 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail We sit down with Sara Press to talk about what property management leadership looks like when you stay hands-on and still protect…
Sara PressGuest
Ashleigh GoodchildHost
So for myself, I guess I started in this industry just over 20 years ago, and for most of that, so I'd say about 20 years of that, I've actually been in the property management side of things.
Also, you know, in the background I help with the business and of the sales side of things too, but primarily my passion is the property management side.
I work with the Barry Plant brand, and been with them, and we're in the, like in the Victoria region.
How, how are you going with, like, your role at the moment? And I mean, it sounds like you do, you know, quite a bit.
Are you, would you say you're a BDM? Property manager, head of department? What would you be?
And head of department, are you also managing a small portfolio or you're, like, purely head of department?
Uh, so it, I'm, I'm never not doing something in a portfolio capacity, whether it's helping someone out or taking that difficult client on or, um, I've just come out of a VCAT with a client where I stepped in and I assisted.
And yeah, so I'm, I'm always working on it, but I don't have a necessarily a portfolio to myself, but I'm here for my team.
In the sense of whenever they need anything, whether it's coverage or it's just circumstances that they don't know how to handle, you know, something new.
So really interesting with like escalations and all of that inside businesses, you know, where there's escalations with, yeah, a complaint that's come through or difficult situation and circumstance.
Do you find that with the escalations that come to you, are they generally because they, like, just really curly tricky ones that could be a risk to the business? Or are they, do you take them on to help relieve, uh, relieve any stress if that is quite stressful for the property manager to handle? Or is it a time thing so that they're not wasting time dealing with something that you can do? Like, does it fall into any of those categories?
I won't necessarily get it escalated to me, but if there's something that is taking a lot of time for one of the property managers, uh, they'll come to me and I'm happy to assist them.
So I'll actually sit with them in the background, give them the guidance, give them the advice, help them put together what they need to in order to, I guess, sort of try and shut down that conflict or that dispute that's happening before it does formally escalate to me.
So for myself, I guess I started in this industry just over 20 years ago, and for most of that, so I'd say about 20 years of that, I've actually been in the property management side of things.
Also, you know, in the background I help with the business and of the sales side of things too, but primarily my passion is the property management side.
I work with the Barry Plant brand, and been with them, and we're in the, like in the Victoria region.
How, how are you going with, like, your role at the moment? And I mean, it sounds like you do, you know, quite a bit.
Are you, would you say you're a BDM? Property manager, head of department? What would you be?
And head of department, are you also managing a small portfolio or you're, like, purely head of department?
Uh, so it, I'm, I'm never not doing something in a portfolio capacity, whether it's helping someone out or taking that difficult client on or, um, I've just come out of a VCAT with a client where I stepped in and I assisted.
And yeah, so I'm, I'm always working on it, but I don't have a necessarily a portfolio to myself, but I'm here for my team.
In the sense of whenever they need anything, whether it's coverage or it's just circumstances that they don't know how to handle, you know, something new.
So really interesting with like escalations and all of that inside businesses, you know, where there's escalations with, yeah, a complaint that's come through or difficult situation and circumstance.
Do you find that with the escalations that come to you, are they generally because they, like, just really curly tricky ones that could be a risk to the business? Or are they, do you take them on to help relieve, uh, relieve any stress if that is quite stressful for the property manager to handle? Or is it a time thing so that they're not wasting time dealing with something that you can do? Like, does it fall into any of those categories?
I won't necessarily get it escalated to me, but if there's something that is taking a lot of time for one of the property managers, uh, they'll come to me and I'm happy to assist them.
So I'll actually sit with them in the background, give them the guidance, give them the advice, help them put together what they need to in order to, I guess, sort of try and shut down that conflict or that dispute that's happening before it does formally escalate to me.
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