Meet Sabina
Hi, I’m Sabina, and I was recently promoted to become the Lettings Manager in the Midlands at PA Housing. In November, I will have been working here for 10 years – including the time in my past roles as Lettings Coordinator and Lettings Team Leader.
Like many people, working in housing is something I kind of fell into. My first job after arriving in UK in 2005 was at a Grand Hotel in Leicester doing part-time housekeeping. After few months, I moved into a full-time opportunity helping to set up conferences and events there.
I wanted a change so I could: A) engage my brain more as setting up tables the same way every time could get tiresome. B) earn a better wage than I was on. So, I went looking for new jobs and ended up with two interviews.
The first was at a private letting agent. I went in and the interviewer wasn’t very prepared, so I said, ‘Why don’t we be spontaneous?’ He later told me that as soon as I said that I had already got the job!
The second interview was at a bank, and it was just awful. It was a small place and the interviewer kept asking overly personal questions. I thought to myself, ‘I hope I don’t get this job.‘ Although I was offered the job at the bank, thankfully, on my way home, I got the call from the letting agent to tell me I was successful there too. I was so happy to hear that and accepted. When I started at there, I didn’t know a single thing about housing, lettings, or the legal aspects involved. The office was understaffed so I didn’t have any proper training at first, and I was dropped in at the deep end.
I took this opportunity to ask anyone I could a lot of questions and learn as much as I could about the role.
I also got more training as I went along. After being a Lettings Administrator for 5 years, I decided I wanted to move up. However, at that place, there was no option to move up to a Lettings Negotiator role, which was a natural way of progression. So, I moved to another private letting agent as a Lettings Negotiator for a couple of years.
The reason I decided to leave private sector was because I didn’t agree with how landlords treated their tenants. I got the sense that they didn’t see them as individuals – more like cash cows or a means to an end for earning money. The properties were just their assets that they could do anything with, rather than someone’s home.
It’s as we say at PA Housing, everybody is unique, so we should treat people as individual human beings.
I decided to look for jobs in social housing organisations because it’s a more caring environment which is when I saw the role at the Asra Housing Group (which later merged to form PA Housing).
The salary offered was significantly better than what I was on, so when I went into the interview, I thought there was no chance that I would get it. As interviews go, it wasn’t horrendous, but I didn’t think it went amazingly either. When I got the call telling me I’d got the job, I think my first words were ‘You’re joking!’
After the first week of starting here, I decided that I had to forget absolutely everything about private lettings because this was a completely different ‘pair of shoes.’ I noticed the massive difference to how allocations and nominations work in social housing. One thing remains the same, no matter what kind of lettings you do, is the satisfaction of seeing someone’s face light up when they get the keys to their new home. That’s what motivated me to stay in this line of work.
It was still about giving residents the keys to their new homes, but the approach, the working relationship with residents, as well as the rules and agreements around bedroom allocations and overcrowding were all so different. When it’s private, it’s up to you who you rent to – although tenants’ rights have thankfully improved in recent years.
PA will do their best to accommodate for your progression aspirations
My journey from Lettings Negotiator / Coordinator to Lettings Manager at PA took 10 years. Whilst that may seem like a long time, it was all part of my plan to grow within the business. My managers up until this point always gave me the opportunity to progress and pick up additional responsibilities where possible. Plus, PA offered me the chance to get onto courses to develop my skills further too. I also enjoyed going to the Future Leaders Conference that is run by the National Housing Federation. It is always very motivational. After I went, I felt full of new energy and had lots of great ideas.
Since I started, I have always been given the scope to do what I set my mind to. My advice to everyone is to always ask for things so that people know what your aims are.
Although I am now a manager, I think that my greatest achievement while being here was stepping up to become a Team Leader. I tried twice – the first time I crashed and burned. However, I treated it as a learning curve. I learned from my mistakes and prepared twice as much for the second time. Most importantly, I asked for help. It was such a good feeling to be able to implement the ideas I had for my team – delivering better re-let times and customer service being the main ones. I am so proud to have a team of open-minded people who let me do that.
Now, I still can’t believe I’ve been promoted to manager.
I’m definitely feeling a bit of impostor syndrome. I remember changing my email signature to Lettings Manager and thinking, ‘Is that okay? Am I allowed?’ It has been my dream to be a manager for a while – not in the sense of ‘being the boss’, but the fact that I can use the opportunity to make positive changes. I do like to fix and improve things, but I’d never change anything for the sake of it – only if it makes sense, improves the service, and allows my team and I to work smarter.
Even though there have been some challenges, I’ve loved working here from day 1 and I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. I’m proud to be growing alongside the business and am optimistic about its future under our new Chief Executive. Lettings is also my passion, so I’m happy to be on this career path. If it’s something that you’re interested in, I’d say that there’s a lot to learn, but it’s great if you enjoy variety and the rewarding, people-centred results.
On a different note, as for a little bit more about me, I enjoy gardening in my spare time. I grow tomatoes and cucumbers – well, unless the snails eat them all. They’re the bane of my life, there’s so many of them!
