Jourdan Murray is the Property Manager for Read Investments, a company that owns and operates over 2 million square feet of retail, multifamily, and industrial real estate throughout Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
Before her role at Read Investments, Jourdan was a Senior Assistant Community Manager at Essex Property Trust and a Senior Assistant Property Manager at Cushman & Wakefield. Currently, she’s a member of BOMA Oakland East Bay and the Cushman & Wakefield Emerging Professional Committee.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Jourdan Murray discusses the types of properties she manages at Read Investments and the impact of the pandemic
- The challenges Jourdan faced transitioning to retail space management
- What software and tools can help property managers stay organized?
- How cultivating relationships has helped Greg Owens and Jourdan thrive in their management positions
- The power of being kind and connecting with your community
- Jourdan talks about the learning curves that come with understanding the mechanical and technical side of running a building
- How Jourdan got started with property management and became her own advocate
In this episode…
How can you successfully transition into a new role, a new company, or even a new industry? What does it take to become an exceptional manager and leader in an entirely different space?
After working various customer service jobs out of high school, Jourdan Murray knew she wanted to do something different. She was craving a career that would bring responsibility, provide her with challenges, and help her grow. Once she landed a job in property management, Jourdan dove headfirst into the industry and began conquering her fears. Now, she’s learning something new every day and working to improve properties — and most importantly, communities.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens and Katrina Stephenson sit down with Jourdan Murray, Property Manager for Read Investments. Together, they talk about Jourdan’s journey into property management, how she continues to overcome industry challenges, and the software that helps her succeed. Plus, Jourdan discusses the power of being kind, connecting with your community, and building strong relationships. Stay tuned!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- Katrina Stephenson on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Jourdan Murray on LinkedIn
- Read Investments
- Wrike
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top leaders, industry experts and more to discuss issues affecting facility managers and property owners. Now let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:22
Hello, everyone, this is Greg Owens with another episode of Watching Paint Dry, where we are interviewing people that are related to or in the industry, property management, facilities management, and all the contractors and support services and businesses that support that entire industry. And this podcast like all our podcasts is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting. It’s a painting company that does both interior and exterior painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. We do both commercial and residential painting. You can find out more by going to McCarthypainting.com. And I’m super excited because we have I think somebody from the Bay Area’s right, Jourdan, and it’s correct. Jourdan Murray from she’s the property manager at Read Investments and and where are you located today?
Jourdan Murray 1:21
I’m actually in my office, my central office here in Berkeley.
Greg Owens 1:24
Oh, nice. That’s great. And we also have Katrina Stephenson on the podcast. She works from McCarthy Painting’s, you might hear her voice talking about asking questions, too, because she can’t help herself and is trying to learn as much as she can around all these different industries, including podcasts. So this is great. Hello, thank you. Jourdan what’s. How are you doing Berkeley I was there the other day for my first in person meeting in a while in in the East Bay. And you guys are still a little bit more locked down than we are over here. And Marin because I know I walked into a Pete’s coffee. And I got yelled at for not wearing my mask. And over here in Marin on the other side of the bay. We didn’t have to wear masks inside companies yet. So what were things? This was like a week ago. I’m not sure what’s going on. And I love to get like updates on what’s happening,
Jourdan Murray 2:16
man. Well, I didn’t realize that just in Marin that it was that laxed because here in Berkeley, definitely you can walk down the street and before you even enter Pete’s people are looking at you like where’s your mask?
Greg Owens 2:28
Right. Yeah.
Jourdan Murray 2:31
Fourth Street, the Fourth Street. Okay.
Greg Owens 2:34
What’s the there’s one right off of university? Right? Yeah.
Jourdan Murray 2:37
One street close to where I am. Yeah. And that area, actually, specifically, people are very, very conscious of maths and whatnot. So my central sort of geography has not changed much. I will say as far as like the COVID concern feels just in my immediate sort of area. But like the rest of us at large, it seems that things are kind of failing back and coming back to some normalcy, which is good. But right here in my little bubble is still very, very, yes. concerned.
Greg Owens 3:08
Right. Right. I wonder I wonder if it’s because I saw all the students there, you know, and I wonder if it’s because there’s so many students from other countries, other parts of the country, all of that that may be there and maybe the numbers are higher there and that kind of stuff in Marin, but at least it was surprising to see the sort of difference COVID Verryn to the Oh, and and they asked for like back vaccination cards going into restaurants, which they do in the city to but they haven’t I haven’t had that happen to me here yet. In Marin. Yeah.
Jourdan Murray 3:42
And then I actually over the weekend, I went to Roseville to hang out with a friend to a store and like, we’re the only people with the masks on and I didn’t realize why we were staring at us.
Greg Owens 3:53
Yeah, there’s no COVID up there. Yeah.
Jourdan Murray 3:56
So, you know, it’s funny, I don’t know how we’ll progress much as a people if it’s just so segregated, right. But it’s fascinating.
Greg Owens 4:03
It is fascinating. It is fascinating. So tell me a bit about you your involvement Read Investments, like what what types of properties? Are you managing there?
Jourdan Murray 4:14
Yeah, so this is actually super unique and new for me. And what I’m doing here at Read is managing retail portfolio. Um, I got hired managing eight portfolios spanning California and Washington State of Washington. My boss is on maternity leave. She just left a couple weeks ago. So I’ve inherited another seven. So I’m managing, you know, 14 or so properties in across California, Washington and Oregon. Never have done retail before and never have managed things out of state before. And I’ve been here started in March. So there’s been a huge learning curve, but it’s been unbelievably Exciting, super enriching. So interest in retail is definitely different.
Greg Owens 5:05
Yeah, retail is definitely different. And I can only imagine there’s all kinds of challenges between all of those areas right between Washington, Oregon, and here based on COVID. restrictions, rules, and then what types of retail you have going on because retail got hit incredibly hard during this whole thing, along with restaurant, anything like that, right? Like, yeah. And I’ve been up to Portland, I haven’t been up to Washington recently, but I’ve been up to Portland. And that’s, that’s been crazy, that downtown area has been hits so hard, it feels like a ghost town still, like that was like back in October, it felt like a ghost town, downtown, the downtown area. I was just like, going to coffee shops as we were talking. And it’s like, wow, this is devastated. There’s certain places closed,
Jourdan Murray 5:53
definitely, I wasn’t here. And you know, during the thick of COVID I wasn’t working with Read. So when I started, you know, we were on the on the recovery sort of swing. But I do hear stories from my co workers about, you know, how hard certain things were hit and how, you know, tenants dealt with that. Um, so I’m grateful I guess, I mean, I experienced it at another company right at the time, but with this company, since starting, I’ve been much more sealing a smooth sailing, we’ll call it since starting, which has been good. And
Greg Owens 6:25
you mentioned the learning curve, like helped me understand what the learning curve of go I can imagine the different things that happen between retail I mean, retail, you know, the, the customer experience is paramount. You can’t get in the way like things you know, the door everything’s got to operate correctly so that they can be open for business, right. Your
Jourdan Murray 6:44
business? Yes, yeah. And everything
Katrina Stephenson 6:46
was changing. It seems like nothing was sticking and it was circumstantial. Like this store could do this. This one can do that. As you guys were making
the piece. Yeah.
Greg Owens 6:56
wrote the rules. Yeah, it’s hard to figure out the rules,
Katrina Stephenson 6:59
right? I just slowly walk into places like what do you want? I know like what’s yours
Jourdan Murray 7:05
to do here?
Katrina Stephenson 7:07
Take it off arrows for a while I don’t see those anymore.
Jourdan Murray 7:12
I know for a while they were making at the grocery store like go up a certain aisle and down another and I mean, it’s it was so chaotic for so long. You think about it now and you’re like we were like getting like like filtered through like cattle. We were like sitting outside in the heat. We were lazy.
Greg Owens 7:29
Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that. But we were like rat did amazed right? Yeah. was waiting outside waiting outside of Trader Joe’s to go into
Jourdan Murray 7:38
deciding like, do I want to go to Trader Joe’s
Greg Owens 7:42
eggs? Where are the eggs worth it? Do I need them?
Katrina Stephenson 7:46
I live on Fourth Street and Sander fell. And there’s still reminiscences of like the footprints that are six feet apart on the ground. spraypainted and it’s so eerie.
Jourdan Murray 7:55
Yeah, like, feel so long ago, but it’s not it’s yeah,
Greg Owens 8:00
it’s not it’s not what was so what was the thing some of the things that you had to tackle in learning more about retail? Because I I’m interested in like, what those differences are from your end and the challenges that you ran into?
Jourdan Murray 8:12
Yeah, um, you know, the first thing that there’s there’s definitely been a couple right are few even. But I would say the first thing that comes to mind truly is, you know, the base of my experiences in class, a office commercial property management, right. So all of my career has been about being very customer service oriented, very, you know, boots on the ground, how can I help you? How can I serve you? How can I elevate the client experience? How can I, you know, be liaison between the client and the tenant, there’s just so many things, and it was very, very, you know, customer service focused. And I love that. And what I’m doing now is still very service focused, we’ll call it right. But, um, the interaction that I have with, you know, a retail tenant, like, you know, a major Big Box Company, we’ll call it versus even like a small mom and pop, you know, the expectation from me is just a little bit different. Um, I am not my role isn’t to be as service oriented, my role isn’t to be as you know, elevating the experience. It’s kind of like what Katrina said, it’s more about making sure that you know, the doors are operational things are working, you know, when you’re literally like going to a shopping center as a patron you know, and you’re like, Let’s do beautiful like making sure that that’s okay, you know, making sure that the canopy lights are working but you know, once you kind of enter the store and that experience that my sort of job we’ll call it stop,
Greg Owens 9:50
right? Oh, that’s right. So okay, because Class A office buildings and that kind of stuff. You You’re, you’re taking the experience all the way through the building.
Jourdan Murray 9:59
taking it through, yeah, and a bit more, you know, a tenant would move in to, you know, an office space, and then I may have a relationship with that front desk person or whoever was involved, you know, from the, from when they moved in from, you know, the duration of their, you know, term, it’s just a more of an intimate, I guess, connection, a lot of these, a lot of my experience now is just working with like, other facility people, and then them, us trying to somehow, you know, them checking on me to make sure that things are functioning, and then I kind of like will follow up, but there’s just a little bit less of a sort of personable factor, and a lot of ways. So that’s been a bit of a learning curve for me, just because it’s been more so less about trying to cultivate the relationship, at least at first, and it’s been more about like, okay, you know, all this company is caring about is making sure that like the parking lot lights are working, let’s just get that done. And then we will, you know, try to meet that person or create a connection with that person after the fact, I guess just the year isn’t important. It’s
Greg Owens 11:04
different. Yeah, yeah, no, I can see that, I can see that, because like, the retail wants to design the customer experience themselves, right, they don’t want your involvement in that part, right? Like, they do not, and they do want you, but they do want the landscaping to look pretty, and they do want the lighting in the works. And, you know, if a water main breaks, then they’re definitely calling you.
Jourdan Murray 11:27
Correct. And it’s interesting, because, you know, especially managing things like out of state, or just things that you just can’t, you know, post enough I could drive to in an hour, but it’s still an hour away, like I’m not there on site, and trying to somehow balance this, like, I know that you’re this big corporation, and we have this very, you know, clearer sort of relationship. But how do I break through that a little bit? Because I want, you know, those employees and those people on site to like, how can we translate what I need in my passion to then your employees, because I’m not there to be able to monitor anything, or see anything. And that really comes down to every specific company, internal training and policy and how involved they are and how much they care. So I’ve just been my boss has just been trying to, like reel me in to, like, manage my expectations. Understand, you know, where I kind of fit in all of this and just that I’m not, you know, this on site facility property manager, necessarily anymore, but just, you know, I oversee a lot of things I have to change my expectation.
Greg Owens 12:35
Yeah, and I can imagine that you’re using like technology and a lot a lot more ways to, to sort of help you manage those expectations. And that kind of thing, is there any anything on that in the learning curve or like, or that you can share around like how you’ve been using technology to, to sort of manage that because it’s harder when when it’s afar, like you said, you can get in a car and drive an hour. That’s, that’s kind of a big commitment to go look at building but at least you can go look and have eyes on it, which is nice, but it’s a whole different story when it’s like, you know, two hour flight.
Jourdan Murray 13:08
Yeah, exactly. It’s very different. Um, you know, I would like to say there a specific software that was like, This has been so helpful called Wrike. Um, and I’d never heard of it before starting with this company. And I consider myself very organized and even on an OCD level, but starting and then managing all of these properties, you know, even my typical having my you know, calendar book and my outlook and my notes was like, not cutting it, because I could not keep it all together. Oh, it was so much happening. You know, scanning so many properties,
Greg Owens 13:44
too many too many moving pieces. So you might you might have like, like they you need a landscaper to fix something on a property in Washington, but that’s going to take two or three days. Yeah. And then the landscaper needs to get back to you because they’re like, Well, I’m not sure which time of the year keeping track of that landscapers scheduled to then find out? Did they go look at it that they do it went with it? Do they need to go back and then communicate all that back to the client? But that’s just one of like, 150 or 300? Yes, that’s
Jourdan Murray 14:16
just one of many topics of many properties that you know, in different states. So exactly, I found myself even me and I, you know, getting just because I know my own capacity and how I function, overwhelmed just by the amount of things that I had to stay on top of and keep organized. And this software, I’d never heard of it before starting but it’s great, you know, you basically create a folder for each property. I label it by the city that the property is in and then it’s just this very kind of just high level, you know, to do list, you know, on steroids. That’s just variable to just update things and drag and drop attachments and things. proposals and pictures, you know, and all types of stuff because there’s just a lot a lot to keep track of. So the technology piece that has been, I guess, like the biggest help has been literally like that software neat, organized. And together.
Greg Owens 15:14
What was the name of the software? Again? You
Jourdan Murray 15:16
said called Wrike? W R I K E. Yeah, it’s awesome. Um, but, you know, honestly, the more so that’s been a game changer to helping me has been, you know, I started in March. And so it’s only been, you know, a few months. But as some of these properties we have, you know, vendors that help us with, like our sleeping are like, really what they become it’s specific properties we’ve located like, engineer handyman, just like gods that are like our on site, literally, I mean, think about it, I’m not in I’m not in, you know, Merced, right? That’s close enough, but it’s not that close. So if something happens, you know, that’s even someone calling being like, there’s someone you know, standing outside doing something horrible, like, and they call me because that’s just what they think to do. Right? It’s like, it’s, it’s a very helpless feeling to just say, like, I don’t know how to help, I don’t know, call the police, like, send me a photo, what are you looking at type. Um, but and I can’t take any credit for this, because my boss in this team has spent many years cultivating these relationships way prior to me. But we have some people on our team who work at these properties that are the most loyal, hardworking, dedicated people. So when I’m not there, you know, one of our properties, there’s a huge, you know, homeless issue. And we there’s one man specifically, that kind of freaks a lot of habits. And he, he said a couple of fires since I’ve started and I’ve, you know, met with the police. And I’m like, What can we do about this, it’s such a hopeless feeling, because I’m not there. I don’t know how to help. And, you know, my, my guy, Don, who’s just our go to everything vendor truly. It’s just like my eyes and ears just to say, you know, he’s here today, or it’s not here today, or looks good. Today, it’s after today, going way beyond his scope to just like, be an extension of me more than technology more than anything else. I just think like, the relationships that Read has built, and then I’ve been able to keep going or what makes this possible at all. I don’t know how we could manage things and not be on site without
Greg Owens 17:25
Oh, that’s, that’s, that’s wonderful to hear. Because a lot of ways I do that for a few companies, right? Where because I’m, I’m at their buildings all the time, they chant, they asked me a lot of other questions outside of my normal scope, right. And so I can see how that would become invaluable to somebody like yourself, especially when you’re at a state and that kind of thing. Katrina looks like you’re looking looking,
Katrina Stephenson 17:49
good love hearing about the human connection. That’s very inspiring, after all, the API’s which are great, no, yeah. Nice. It’s nice to hear that you’re, you know, boots on the ground.
Greg Owens 18:00
Yeah. And it’s somebody you can trust, and you have that built that relationship, like you said, over time, right. And then you were able to step in and, and continue that relationship, which is wonderful.
Jourdan Murray 18:09
Definitely. And then also, you know, having to build new relationships. Like, for example, we had some potholes in Washington that needed to get filled. And it was kind of a last minute thing, right? Because my boss is leaving on leave. And it was like, you know, Winter’s coming, we need to get it done. And I had no idea that, you know, concrete and asphalt plants close down the winter in that part of the world, right? I don’t know. So I’m like calling kind of blind lessly. And they don’t know me and I don’t know them. And it’s truly I’m like, I you know, I’ve never even been to this location before. And I’m like, it’s in front of a Del Taco. It’s this massive hole. You know, I need it filled before winter, just trying to just blindly call asphalt vendors for help and finally end up getting someone on the phone who surely just because he was just so compassionate and awesome at his job, had another job down the street, of course, I had no reference for what he was talking about, but made enough material to come and like do a hot patch for ours. And, you know, I promised to reach back out to him in the spring for some work and just that kind of stuff. Like it’s been it’s been challenging, but I think like respecting people and being good to people is so important. And I’ve been really excited to see how like that’s translated to being able to reach people that you know, you don’t even meet that are you know, far away and still getting the job done?
Greg Owens 19:33
Yeah. And that’s great that you’re you’re also going to you know, it’s so wonderful as a vendor when we go and save somebody because like we do emergency paint jobs and that kind of thing that happen Yeah, hey, we’ve got a problem. The ceiling leak the come in and just do a quick as fat and we drop everything, you know, go in at night, do the all the work. And they say they’ll say something like, well, we’ll have you know, we’ll use the next time right. It’s so great when they use you for a few times. Project, right? It’s never any fun when they never, they don’t use you.
Jourdan Murray 20:05
Right, which happens.
Greg Owens 20:08
And I understand people move and they forget or whatever, but it’s, it’s just like, but it’s so nice in that building those relationships, right and that kind of thing. And, and you can, you know, and and over time they get better and better and better from what I’ve found, right. So, you know, we’ve got, I think for me, it’s interesting because like, and Katrina knows this is that with quite a few of the facilities managers we do work for, I love it that like, I know in our relationships really tight when they pick up the phone every time I call. Right. And that’s like a good, that’s a good indicator that they that we are we’ve been doing well together is because like, there’s been an ongoing rapport building, and they’re happy to chat with me. And it’s not just like a sales call or anything like that, you know, usually I’m checking in or I’m like, Hey, I’m right down the street from your building? Do you want me to spin by and look at something? And they’re like, oh, yeah, absolutely, I forgot all, this section of the building that I need you to look at, right?
Jourdan Murray 21:05
All of your clients love you. I know they do. So that is what every property manager Lives for, I promise is just, you know, because we we know, we we’ve do the managing portion, right? But we’re not the vendors, we don’t do that part of the so it’s very, very, very important and invaluable when we have good working relationships with vendors that do good work that, you know, we have good, mutual, respectful relationships that benefit, you know, both parties, it’s important. So in in my career, I have found that and it’s been it’s definitely been invaluable. And in this situation, especially, it’s becoming more and more clear how important it is to treat your vendors. Right. And to keep those relationships positive. And
Greg Owens 21:51
that’s great to hear on your end. Yeah. And then you touched on it a little bit. I want to because it is a big problem in retail, it’s a major problem is the homeless problem. That’s like it’s gone. Yeah, it’s skyrocketing in certain markets, right? Yeah, for sure. Berkeley being one of them is it’s unbelievable. San Francisco also. And then Portland was I mean, it was literally like the downtown area of Portland. It was tent city, on the sidewalks, and they’re barbecuing out there. And they’re they have heaters, and they I mean, it’s a different it’s a different type of homeless than like, the old days when they just had like cardboard boxes, you know, they have right, I saw some that have significant like little mini houses. I know it’s like a trailer like they had