Block management, a growing sector in property rental market

An increasingly sophisticated owners’ market is prepared to pay appropriately for the management and upkeep of common spaces. Conor Power reports

Property owners are increasingly aware of the value of paying professional managers to oversee their rental homes.

Fri, 09 Oct, 2026 - 11:58

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Choices Lettings & Property Management are one of the largest in the block management sector in Cork city, managing mostly in the city centre, as well as in some suburban areas.

“We have clients ranging from those with single properties up to organisations owning 50 or more properties,” says Cormac Aherne of Choices.

In the block sector, a lot of service charges have increased in recent years, but an increasingly sophisticated owners’ market is prepared to pay appropriately for the management and upkeep of common spaces, as well as ensuring that problems are dealt with before they arise.

“From a block management perspective, it’s important that owners know how important it is to keep a sinking fund well-funded on a permanent basis, so that when the lift fails or a roof needs to be replaced, the funds are in place to go ahead and do it straight away… it isn’t much of an issue for brand new builds but for those of 20 years or more, it is.”

As part of their block management duties, Cormac says, they carry out life-cycle reports on buildings; as a way of predicting what costs may arise in the future and at what point replacements/repairs may have to be carried out (replacing a lift, for example, can cost as much as €100,000).

At Absolute Property Group, block management is a very important part of their business – a trend that they expect will continue in the coming years.

“Block management is a very specialised area,” says Sonya Irwin “We’re fortunate here to have eight fully licensed property managers, between the lettings and the property management here. It makes a huge difference that people have experience in property management.

“We’re very lucky here in the contacts that we have. If they’re building blocks of apartments, they’ll come to us and say, ‘we’re building here and what do you see in terms of pitfalls going forward with the site?’ That’s great for us as block managers because we can turn around and suggest things to keep on top of the management of the building in question.”

Sonya mentions suggestions that come from their experience in block management, such as installing platforms for cleaning windows beforehand, avoiding having to set up expensive scaffolding every time you need to carry out such routine upkeep. Or leaving enough room around the building to allow a cherry-picker to gain access to all sides of the building.

“Unfortunately, with some buildings that are 20 years old, for example, they often haven’t benefitted from that kind of forward planning. Trying to get work done in a building is more difficult where they haven’t put enough thought into the process.

“Nowadays, people are putting a lot more thought into the process of block management and into the provision of enough sinking funds in the management company to face challenges down the line.”

“Some blocks had enough in place from the outset,” says Patricia Hynes Block Manager at ERA Downey McCarthy in Cork. “Other places started out not wanting to put too much into it. Then they get hit with something down the line and then they realise it what levels they need to have to cope with maintenance costs. I think that more people understand the requirements now than when it first became obligatory.”

As with other companies in block management, there’s quite a lot of retrofitting going on in older apartment blocks around Cork and Munster – getting them up to speed in terms of energy efficiency.

“When you’re going into a block, you’re starting at the entrance – the gates and figuring out how much of this will need to be painted,” says Sonya. “Then you’ve thinks like the guttering, the landscaping and other exterior parts. How many lifts are in the building? Is there an underground car park? It’s a matter of adding up all the costs associated with the tasks and predicting when these will need to be carried out in the coming years… I think that people are very cognisant of all of that; people are cognisant of the cost of everything nowadays.”

The block management sector, Sonya says, is in full growth and it’s a sector that will continue in that upward curve over the coming years.

Patricia Hynes is finding a similar positive pattern, complete with the myriad challenges that present themselves on a day-to-day basis in the world of block management.

“I set up the block management division in ERA just over nine years ago,” says Patricia. “Before that, the company never did block management. Since then, we’ve grown from zero to 60 blocks now. So it’s certainly growing for us. It’s an onerous challenge at times because there’s a lot involved in block management… I could have a list of tasks and a plan for the day and then a leak or an emergency comes up. It can be very rewarding, especially when you’re working on a big project and you’re seeing it come together.”

They recently oversaw the refurbishment of a façade of a building on Pope’s Quay in Cork.

“The façade renovation was needed so we took advantage to also add a layer of insulation as well,” says Patricia. “That’s just finished and the scaffolding has just come down and it looks amazing."