Director of Community Operations

Overview

You're the general manager of Aspire San Marcos, a student housing property near Texas State University. You handle everything from lease-up performance and team supervision to maintenance coordination and financial reporting. You also work with the corporate team (all 20 of them) to standardize training and operations across their portfolio.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Private equity backed (Pennybacker Capital)

Size: 20 employees total

Growth: Small platform expanding - you're expected to help scale processes

Market Position: Regional player in university housing partnerships

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Property Operations (50%) | Team Management (25%) | Financial/Admin (15%) | Platform Work (10%)

Key Activities

• Leasing Performance: You track occupancy daily, manage the leasing team's activity (tours, applications, renewals), and adjust marketing tactics when pre-lease pace is off. You're measured on achieving 95%+ occupancy by start of term.
• Team Leadership: You manage the on-site staff (leasing agents, maintenance techs, community assistants). This means hiring, training, scheduling, performance reviews, and handling the turnover that's common in property management.
• Maintenance & Vendor Management: You oversee maintenance requests, work orders, turnover timelines, and vendor relationships. When something breaks at 2am, you're the escalation point.
• Financial Management: You own the P&L - tracking against budget, managing expenses, justifying variances, and reporting up to corporate. You're pushing to hit NOI targets while dealing with surprise capital expenditures.
• Resident Experience: You handle escalated resident issues, coordinate events, manage the RA program if there is one, and deal with parent complaints. Student housing means roommate conflicts, noise complaints, and lease break requests.
• Platform Development: You document what works at your property and help create training materials and SOPs for other sites. This is the "help shape the platform" part - it's real work on top of your day job.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're always on site: This is explicitly an on-site role. No remote work, no flexibility. You're the face of the property and expected to be present.
• Student housing is seasonal and unpredictable: Lease-up season (Jan-April) is intense. Summer is dealing with move-outs, turns, and maintenance projects. Parents are involved in everything and often more demanding than residents.
• Small company means lean support: With only 20 people total, you don't have deep corporate support. You're figuring things out yourself and the expectation is you'll document it for others.
• Maintenance never stops: HVAC failures during Texas summer, plumbing issues, pest problems, appliance replacements. Your maintenance budget always feels tight.
• Turnover is constant: Both residents (annual churn is built-in) and staff (property management has high turnover). You're always hiring and training.

What Success Looks Like

• Hit 95%+ occupancy by lease-up deadline (typically July/August)
• Keep NOI within 5% of budget throughout the year
• Maintain online review rating above 4.0 (parents and students both review)
• Build at least 2-3 replicable training programs or process improvements for the platform
• Retain your core team members year-over-year

Who You're "Selling" To

Primary Customers:

• College students (18-22 years old) and their parents
• University housing office (partnership relationship)

What They Care About:

• Students: Location to campus, amenities (pool, gym, study rooms), social environment, wifi quality, responsiveness to maintenance
• Parents: Safety, cleanliness, lease terms, communication, who their kid is living with
• University: Occupancy rates, student satisfaction, compliance with partnership terms, minimal incidents

Requirements

• 5+ years in property management, preferably student housing
• Experience managing P&L and financial performance
• Proven track record hitting occupancy and leasing goals
• Experience hiring, training, and developing teams
• Comfortable being the on-site leader - this isn't a remote-friendly role
• Ability to work nights/weekends during peak leasing season and when emergencies happen
• Experience with student housing software (Entrata, Yardi, RealPage, etc.)
• Willingness to take on platform-building work beyond just running your property