Q Property Management’s headed up by Mark Blake, who’s worked with two local real estate agencies over the past almost-10 years.
He’s in 50/50 partnership with Q Property Valuations, and sharing offices with them in Gorge Rd.
Q Property Valuations director Barry Murphy says "we always wanted to diversify the business, and we thought one avenue that would benefit our business, without creating conflicts of interest, would be a property management company".
"Mark wanted to expand his horizons and take on a more front-running role, and there’s probably no better man in Queenstown [in his field] than Mark.
"Why we chose him over anyone else was the fact he has an equally good reputation with tenants as well as landlords — it’s very important a landlord picks a property manager that focuses on tenant relationships as well."
Blake says having no alignment with a real estate agency is "a massive advantage" as agencies without property management divisions can comfortably work with him.
Offering both independence and experience are important, he adds.
He intends specialising at the higher end — "I’ve been lucky enough to get involved with a fair few high-end clients" — but also with good-quality new product at the lower end of the market.
Looking ahead to a lot of rental stock coming on to the market in the next few years with, for example, development on Ladies Mile and along the southern corridor, "you’d want to make sure you’ve got a proper proactive property management business looking after it".
Murphy says he and his business partners Andrew Hyndman and Craig Sinkinson are "very excited" to have Blake onboard.
"He’s gonna smash it out of the park."
