Living in a horizontal, low, or mid-rise community offers residents convenience and ease. To many, delegating maintenance of exterior or common areas of the strata saves time and money. To others, it's reassuring to count on a shared code of guidelines between neighbours.
But maintaining a thriving community means large responsibilities.
As a strata council member, you work to ensure the community is safe and well-maintained. Residents – your neighbours –should get the best value for the fees. Partnering with a professional management company can help you anticipate, prioritize, and tackle decisions to avoid surprises. Most importantly, you want to enjoy living in the community you have chosen with peace of mind— a neighbourhood in harmony.
Our strata clients expect a boutique and personalized experience. As Metro Vancouver’s largest strata management company, we are the only company who can provide this type of experience. The key is our “depth of support”. Only FirstService Residential has an in-house team of strata experts to support your strata manager and council. From Insurance & Risk Management, to cost-sharing and building warranty – we do it all! And the result is Strata Managers with smaller portfolios, and clients with access to strata specialists, and better advice.
Transitions team – FirstService Residential provides new clients with a dedicated onboarding team to facilitate the change process when a Strata Corporation changes management companies. At no additional cost to the client, the Transition Team spends 6 to 8 weeks prior to the first day of management proceeding through a detailed checklist to ensure nothing is missed. They take care of everything from requesting information from your current company, informing owners and vendors of the change, performing site inspections, meeting with council and building out your directives and maintenance plan.
Building warranty – Trust that you will be guided through your Strata Corporation’s 2, 5 and 10 year warranty milestones. Our expert Building Warranty team, with more than 30 years of experience, provides guidance and best practices in reporting deficiencies and resolving repairs with your building’s developer.
Technology –Available exclusively to Strata Corporations managed by FirstService Residential, you will receive access to FirstService Residential Connect™. This proprietary software allows you to view violation reports, resident inquiries, generate an owner directory, access important strata documents, book amenities, and more - 24/7.
Banking & insurance – By leveraging the size of our client portfolio, FirstService Residential is the only management company in the province to offer clients optional banking and insurance programs. Our clients do not pay monthly banking fees, while also earning guaranteed interest rates on your Operating Fund, CRF balances, and investments. We also can offer our clients better insurance coverage and reduced rates of insurance. These programs are administered by FirstService Financial (FFI) and FirstService Insurance Brokers, an affiliate of FirstService Residential.
Preferred savings programs – As Metro Vancouver’s largest strata management company, we leverage our size to save your strata corporation money. We provide you with access to exclusive strata corporation savings programs on everything from waste management, telecommunications, restoration and banking and insurance.
Regional Directors – Each strata manager is supervised and supported by a regional director. As a resource and escalation point, the Regional Director is always available to provide additional support and guidance to strata councils and Owners. Our team of regional directors consists of seasoned leaders and management professionals.
Smaller manager portfolios – On average, our strata agents manage fewer buildings per manager compared to the industry average due in part because of the in-depth support available from our operations team. The result is a strata manager who is able to focus solely on the important business of council.
Robust accounting – Your strata will be assigned a dedicated accountant who understands your financial statements. Your council can speak directly with your accountant, anytime. We encourage our clients to also visit our office for an orientation to become familiar with your monthly statements.
24/7/365 assistance – All residents have access to our Customer Care Centre, where FirstService Residential associates are available 24/7 to answer a majority of questions regarding your strata corporation. We provide a variety of services including, but not limited to: setting up strata fee payments, registering for Connect, confirming account balances and much more. Customer Care has translation services available in 31 different languages. Emergency after hours service is provided by our local on-call strata managers that are available to help dispatch your trades in the event of a flood, fire or security issue.
In addition to mitigating risk, maximizing budgets, improving communication and managing your finances, FirstService Residential strata corporation management stands out in other ways as well. If your community is part of a management portfolio, you still get the personal service you deserve because our portfolios are one-third to one-half smaller than the average in British Columbia.
Each strata manager is supported by a senior regional director. We have a number of full time strata specialists on hand, including risk managers, senior insurance managers, full-time recruitment specialists, payroll specialists, a dedicated strata accountant for each strata and more. Our transition team manages the onboarding of each new client or development.
Contact us to learn more about out how FirstService Residential can meet your strata property management needs throughout Metro-Vancouver.