Community Manager

Student housing operates on a calendar that most property managers never touch. Annual mass turnover, lease-up pressure tied to an academic year, and a resident base with specific expectations around community and service. The Community Manager role at Copper Beech Harrisonburg sits at the center of all of it, and the skills it draws on are different in important ways from conventional multifamily management.

Skills This Role Requires on Day One

Financial fluency is non-negotiable here. You'll own the full NOI picture: budget preparation, variance reporting, invoice processing, payroll, and month-end close. Concessions, gain-to-lease, and leasing velocity are KPIs you'll be held to directly, so comfort reading and acting on financial data is a baseline requirement. Equally important is vendor management. You'll be pulling bids, evaluating scopes, and escalating capex projects through the Regional Manager and Facilities department. Knowing how to read a bid critically and understand what you're approving matters.

Leadership at this level also means owning the staffing model. You're scheduling, setting on-call rotations, and serving as the primary after-hours responder when issues escalate. If conflict management isn't already a developed skill for you, this role will expose that gap quickly. Three or more years managing a residential community and a team of three or more is the stated baseline, and Scion means it.

Skills This Role Builds

For managers who haven't worked in student housing, the annual turn process at a property like Copper Beech is genuinely formative. The scale and compression of time involved in turning hundreds of units in a short window builds operational planning abilities that transfer to any high-volume residential context. You'll be using Turnable to track unit progress, conducting move-out inspections, doing vendor service walks, and getting hands-on with punch list items when the timeline demands it. This isn't delegated from a distance. You'll be in units.

The tech stack here is broader than most multifamily roles. Entrata for property management, Vena for budgeting, Greenhouse for hiring, Lattice for performance management, Qualtrics for resident and employee experience data, and ClickUp for project tracking. Proficiency across platforms like these makes you a stronger operator in any environment that's moving toward integrated property tech.

What Makes This Role Distinct

Scion treats the General Manager as a business unit leader, not a site-level administrator. You're expected to proactively identify revenue opportunities and cost reductions, not just execute a plan handed down from above. Quarterly apartment inspections, monthly property walks with scored assessments, permit compliance audits, and reputation management all live in this role. The breadth is real.

Student housing also has a community-building dimension that differs from conventional multifamily. Resident events, brand integrity, and a customer experience philosophy are part of how Scion differentiates its properties. Managers who've only focused on numbers and operations without developing that community-facing side tend to find the adjustment meaningful.

• 3+ years managing a residential community and a direct team
• Experience with property management systems (Entrata preferred)
• Demonstrated financial management: budgeting, forecasting, variance reporting
• Vendor management and bid evaluation experience
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Comfort working non-traditional hours during peak periods and emergencies

The position is based on-site at Copper Beech Harrisonburg, with periodic travel possible. Benefits include health, dental, and vision coverage, 401k matching, paid parental and maternal leave, a discretionary annual bonus, and learning reimbursement.