House property & its management

In October 1920 the Women’s Section of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association appointed a Sub-Committee to report on the methods and practice of House Property Management, especially with regard to what is generally called working-class property and management by women.

Having collected evidence from the personal observations of their own members and the written statements of other investigators, and having taken evidence also from a leading Woman Sanitary Inspector and from the first Municipal Woman Housing Officer, the Sub-Committee adopted the following principle for general recommendation and as a basis of their Report:

That the management of working-class property should be in the hands of persons who have had definite training in estate management and in Social Science.

The points considered and reported on are divided under four heads:

(1) The Classes of Property to be managed.

(2) The Qualifications of Manager and Assistants.

(3) The Training necessary.

(4) Payment.

I. Introductory Classification of Management.

The Sub-Committee desire to point out that until the advent of the Woman House Property Manager there is no evidence that any special form of Management was considered necessary for the poorer classes of house property.

A very general impression has been prevalent that the Management suitable for better class property (that is, roughly, property let under Agreement in Quarterly and Yearly tenancies) was also suited to tenement and small house property let out in weekly tenancies. In fact, no other system of management existed until Miss Octavia Hill took up the management of weekly tenancies and inaugurated a system of her own.

When well-built properties are in occupation of selected tenants whose financial and social circumstances ensure that the property will be maintained, with few exceptions, in good condition, the work of management is reduced to a minimum and is chiefly occupied with rent collecting and simple and regular requirements in the way of upkeep and repairs. The assumption in the past that nothing more ought to be needed for property of lower grades has too often led to concentration on the more difficult collection of rents, with a minimum attention to repairs. No attention has been paid to economic and social conditions, and the net result has been the production of the slum.

The Sub-Committee believe that the introduction of a suitable form of management, insisted on by some recognized authority, could have prevented the creation of slums in the past. They further believe that it may do so in the future, and that it can, with special effort, eradicate much that is evil in present bad areas. Miss Octavia Hill’s System put into practice the theory that slums could be eradicated and advanced the proposition that management could be made a means to this end. She, the first Woman House Property Manager, and workers she trained, all of them also women, introduced Social Economics into the business of House Property Management. The Sub-Committee feel strongly that many social evils might be avoided by the adoption of Social Economics into business generally. The distinctive mark of Miss Hill’s System is the consideration of the personal, human factor as an integral part of the business. The Sub-Committee can find no justification for condemning this principle as unbusinesslike.

The Sub-Committee have considered the work done by Miss Hill and those who have succeeded her, by visits, and they have read reports of the work in various cities and towns in England and Scotland, in Holland (see Women’s Local Government News, February and March 1921) and in America (see Good Housing that Pays). They find there is evidence of many slum areas redeemed. Improvements by rebuilding have almost necessarily accompanied the work in nearly every case, but there are striking instances of the maintenance of the original old property in excellent sanitary condition. On the other hand, evidences of new properties falling into disrepair for lack of management are not wanting.

II. Managers.

On all working-class estates, whether of higher or lower grade, there is much evidence to show that managers should be in complete control, attending to all matters connected with the property, including the collection of rents and repairs. There is evidence that the separation of responsibility for rent collecting and for ordering and superintending repairs leads to delay in repairs, and, in some cases, has acted adversely on the rent collecting. Rent collectors who are not responsible for repairs are apt to forget to report the need of them.

Whether the manager should be a man or a woman is not, in the opinion of the Sub-Committee, so important as that the principle of management inaugurated by Miss Hill should be adopted. At the same time, they are agreed that it should not be overlooked—

(1) That the housekeeper is always a woman;

(2) That the woman usually pays the rent;

(3) That housekeeping and repairs are closely connected; and

(4) That, therefore, a woman will usually be better equipped than a man to deal with the problems arising out of the management of working-class property.

Whether a man or woman, the Committee are of opinion that the Manager should be properly trained under managers of accepted standing, should thoroughly understand the finance and law involved, should be of recognized efficiency for superintending repairs and upkeep, and should be well-versed in the social problems of the day and the methods of dealing with them.

A word should be added on personality. The more social and industrial difficulties are represented on an estate the greater will the prominence of the personal element be. Whatever the class of property, the personal qualifications of the manager are of importance: tact and consideration are always necessary. But the successful redemption of a slum area will demand specially strong personal qualifications, with wide sympathies and broad outlook, and, just as some learned people never make good teachers, so some human temperaments will never produce good managers, however much “trained.”

The Sub-Committee feel that, on the whole, the splitting of the management under separate Departments is inadvisable. Where such division has succeeded in the past, it has done so largely because a former (pre-war) selection of tenants has kept the most difficult problems of management away from it. In bad areas it is most important that there should be one Head in as direct contact with the Estate as possible, responsible for upkeep and repairs as well as rent collecting and selection of tenants.

III. Training.

Now that Housing has taken a foremost place among the questions of national importance, it is recognized that the standard of good housing cannot be attained unless accompanied by skilled management. From 1864, when Miss Hill began her work, house property may be said to have been managed on the two systems already indicated. The one—the more general—followed by men qualified by the Examinations held for Surveyors and Estate Agents. The other followed by women qualified by a high standard of education and by special training in Social Economics. The training of the men has been thorough on technical, financial and legal lines, if too stereotyped and narrow in outlook. The training of the women has not been thorough enough on the technical side, and has therefore, perhaps, over-emphasized the social side. In the opinion of the Sub-Committee an attempt should be made to combine the two courses.

New houses, tenanted as they are mostly by the better class of tenants, may be easily managed; but where tenants dispossessed from old houses are provided for in modern dwellings, the need is evident for a highly trained manager who will add to his or her business and technical knowledge an educated interest in social conditions and problems. A point in favour of women’s management comes in here. Many of the incoming housekeepers have had no experience in using new fittings. There have been cases in which the tenants have been unable, through lack of knowledge, to clean their porcelain-surfaced or painted bath or their earthenware sink, and have been quite at a loss in the matter of their close-ranged flues. Where women managers have been at work instruction has been given and quick deterioration of appliances avoided. In many towns the congestion and overcrowding has been so great that it has been difficult even for families with regular incomes and a tradition of good housekeeping and homemaking to maintain their standard. Where unemployment has made the income uncertain there has certainly been a lowering of the standard. When such families go into the new houses they need the help of a skilled and tactful adviser if they are to become once more makers of happy and comfortable homes. It must be remembered that the past has left to the towns of to-day a heritage of slums which collect the products of all our social errors and are a breeding-ground for every known social evil. Even as the worst forms of disease require the skill of the cleverest physician, so such properties call for the most highly trained management. From the examples the Committee have had before them they find that such properties have only been successfully dealt with under the Octavia Hill System, and so far only by women.

The London University now grants a Degree in Estate Management, and a College of Estate Management will shortly be opened in London which will prepare for this Degree. The Sub-Committee have examined the Course laid down for the Degree and recommend that steps be taken to obtain some recognition of the special need for the management of working-class property in its provisions. The College will be open to women as well as to men, and it would be well if some alternative or special section of the Course could be arranged to meet this need. The lines along which training should develop have already been indicated under Managers’ qualifications. These might easily be arranged in the future at the College and on Estates approved by the College or other authority, if the good will of that authority can be obtained.

The best course of training would probably be one which combined the kind of studies arranged at the Household Science Department at King’s College, the London School of Economics and the College of Estate Management. All these institutions are linked up to the University of London, and they would doubtless be willing to co-operate in this matter.

IV. Payment.

Estate Agents are usually paid on Commission, but Housing Managers, Superintendents, etc., under big Corporations are paid salaries.

The Sub-Committee do not consider the percentage system a good one, especially for lower grade property, which needs the more time and skill. Also, where rent varies with the rates, as it does on nearly all the properties managed by women, the basis of variation is undesirable for such payment.

Women Managers (mostly paid on percentage) have hitherto undertaken the work at a sacrifice. Introducing as they did a new system of management, their work was intensified, but their percentage remained the same as that of the former agents.

The Sub-Committee believe that better pay might be secured by the following methods:

(1) By a wider and more general attempt at organization. One Manager, responsible for the general principle of the Management, could control a large property or groups of properties, with specially appointed superintendents and staff who have been made to understand the spirit and aims of the work.

(2) By a careful combination of higher grade quarterly tenancies with the lower grade weekly, possibly aided by the promotion of some regular weekly tenancies to monthly payments.

There is very little doubt that management of lower grade properties has been made to pay by undesirable means. Key money, percentage fees on builders’ bills and other “payments” have crept in—in some cases are openly acknowledged and expected. Management should be placed beyond the reach of such practices.

Inefficient management is very largely responsible for the slums of to-day and has led to the need for slum clearances and the consequent enormous expense to the Community. The necessary effort to redeem slum areas now can only be successful by management on modern lines—a strong, efficient business equipment, based on definite ideals with definite social aims. Work on such a foundation cannot fail to bring results, but it should be adequately paid. The attempt to overcome the evils of our heritage of bad management by the introduction of efficient management in bad areas may seem, at first, comparatively costly. It will never be quite so costly in the end as inefficient management.

General Remarks.

A consideration of the whole situation has led the Sub-Committee to the following conclusions:

(1) While not advocating that all properties should be handed over to women to manage, they are convinced that there are special requirements on certain properties which, at the moment, urgently call for women’s special experience.

(2) It would be advisable for all Local Authorities to appoint women in their Housing Departments. Birmingham City Council has taken the first step by appointing a “Woman Rent Collector and Supervisor of Houses.”

(3) That every effort should be made to draw the attention of the Local Authorities to the importance of the need for an improved standard of management.