A Passion for Helping People: a Q&A with Harmony Communities Operations Manager, Sherrie Johnston

When Harmony Communities Operations Manager Sherrie Johnston joined Harmony Communities in 2013, the team consisted of three employees overseeing eleven manufactured housing parks. Eight years later, the company has nearly quadrupled its portfolio of parks. Here, Sherrie shares her journey with Harmony Communities, from the company’s early years to where it is today.

Tell me about your journey with the company. What led you to work for Harmony Communities and how long have you worked there?

I have always had a passion for helping people. I initially went to school to become a nurse but quickly realized it wasn’t for me. I took a job with a real estate brokerage in Sacramento and fell in love with the industry. Three years later, I started working for Matt and his father, Bruce, at Partners Real Estate as their assistant and handling all of Partners’ short sales.

When Matthew (Davies) asked me to come over to Harmony Communities, I initially said no because I disliked property management – or so I thought. I’ve ended up making a home for myself and am having more fun here than I ever expected.

How has Harmony Communities grown since?

We went from eleven parks, three office employees with a construction staff of one to forty parks (and growing!), and nearly sixty people on our payroll, including four entire construction crews! We’ve just hired someone to organize our contracting staff.

As we’ve grown, we’ve initiated lots of new processes to make managing a portfolio of this size, well, manageable. We’ve also adopted a comprehensive property management software program that handles all the financials, rent collection, payment for our vendors, and even payroll in one place. It’s a huge timesaver!

Tell me about Harmony’s residents. Describe a typical household, or several households. How many people in the family, for example? Where do they work?

It varies by park. Residents who choose our parks that are located in the city, such as Bayshore Commons (San Leandro), are looking for a more affordable housing option that is close to work and cheaper than an apartment.

Shady Lakes (Fresno) residents are primarily farm and field workers. Forest Pines, located in the middle of the forest in Pine Grove, California, is home to many empty nesters and single adults. The majority of residents in Westward-ho (Ceres) are retirees. Santa Fe in Huntington Park – an industrial area – has a lot of factory workers.

Describe a typical day.

I never have the same day, ever. My days can be spent doing everything from responding to a city petition to filing new LLCs to training new employees.

I coordinate and oversee rent and utility fee collection with the community managers. I also work closely with the onsite property managers to help them set payment plans for late rent payments, manage park inventory, review their listings and sales, make sure they’re properly advertised for RVs, and so on.

What is most rewarding for you about working for Harmony?

I like helping Matthew and my property managers. It’s extremely fulfilling to be the person that everybody can rely on.

You said earlier that you thought you disliked property management, but you soon found out differently. What made you love it?

I didn’t realize how different every day was going to be. With real estate, every day was very much the same and I felt like I had learned everything that I needed to learn and could learn.

Now, I’m learning every single day. After realizing I would benefit from learning how to read the financials, I went to school, took accounting classes, and got a business degree. I’ve just recently received permission to take a course and learn to code my own reports.

I like to learn and that’s what I get at Harmony.

What is most difficult/challenging about it?

I don’t love some of the reporting I have to do, such as entering the meter readings into a spreadsheet. That’s not because it’s challenging; it’s just repetitive and tedious.

Some of the reporting is fun. Once a year, I create a Consumer Confidence Report, or CCR, for some of our parks which involves taking data from water systems and creating a report that we file with the city. The first year I did that, it was a challenge. Now that I have learned the process, it’s fun.

What do you enjoy doing for fun?

I play tennis 5 days a week, nearly every evening. I also take off Friday mornings and play during the day. Before Covid, I enjoyed traveling with my husband Eric – we love to experience new adventures together. We’re looking forward to traveling again soon. I have a dog – Special Agent Gibbs – that I love more than life itself.

Where do you see Harmony Communities in the future?

I’ve been here nearly ten years and I can’t imagine where we will be in another ten! If we went from eleven parks to thirty-eight parks in eight years – and probably twenty-five of those closed in the last four years – how much bigger can we get in the next ten? It’s crazy to consider and pretty incredible what we’re doing.

We’re going to outgrow this office and be two stories full of employees to keep up with the growth that’s happening at Harmony Communities. We’ve hired a lot of really good, smart people and I got my first assistant!

All in all, I see us continuing to grow and expand. Matthew’s not going to stop until he’s ready and I don’t see that happening any time soon.