OIT Hosting Has Found a Winning Formula

Oulun Isännöitsijätoimisto The company has had a turbulent year. In January 2021, the CEO position passed from father to son when Mauri Niemelä handed the reins over to Jukka Niemelä. Since then, the family-owned company has welcomed employee Petri Gallén as a new shareholder - the first from outside the Niemelä family.

September marked a major leap forward when the company expanded its operations from Oulu to Helsinki by acquiring the business of Kruunun Isännöinti Oy, and in November, the company received two awards when both the “Property Manager of the Year 2021” and “Housing Achievement of the Year 2021” awards were presented to OIT employees.

“The award was the result of 15 years of work and our approach - namely, transparent documentation of housing cooperatives - the significance of which is only now being more widely recognized,” Niemelä commented.

Behind this success lies OIT’s desire to be the most sought-after property management firm in Finland and the successful engagement of its staff in achieving that goal.

More information than required by law

In 2004, Mauri Niemelä purchased a property management business—which had been in operation since the 1980s - from a local real estate association. Niemelä set out to develop the business with determination, and in 17 years, the company has grown from a two-person office into a property management firm employing thirty people.

By the end of 2021, OIT managed a total of 270 housing cooperatives in Oulu and Helsinki.

“We’re always keeping an eye on other growth centers as well, but even though our strategy is to grow, we won’t do so haphazardly - instead, we’ll do it in a controlled and profitable manner, with the well-being of our staff as our top priority,” says Jukka Niemelä.

Niemelä is primarily motivated by the company's growth, and personal success is not the most important thing:

– If I want to keep my staff on board as the company grows and develops, the pace can’t be completely crazy; otherwise, no one but me will be committed to it.

OIT Property Management aims to provide its clients with meaningful property management services. Part of its award-winning approach is to provide shareholders with more information than they might expect.

– It’s no more remarkable than the fact that, for example, in our financial statements, we provide more detailed information on matters of interest to shareholders than is required by law. When a housing company’s history is known, it’s much easier to predict future needs as well, notes CEO Jukka Niemelä.

According to him, providing this information ensures customer satisfaction and, for example, makes it easier to resell homes when details - such as building systems and repair history - are already comprehensively available.

– Real estate agents don’t call us to ask whether plumbing renovations are planned for this or that property or whether condition surveys have been conducted, because all that information can be found in our documents.

Mutually beneficial and productive cooperation

OIT and Confirma have shared a long and eventful journey. Confirma’s Domus property management system had already been in use at OIT when Mauri Niemelä took over as the company’s CEO in 2004.

“We have a loving relationship with Domus. We’ve grown together and helped each other,” says Niemelä.

OIT is also one of Domus's client companies whose needs served as the starting point for the development of Huoneistotieto.fi.

– It wasn’t easy at first, but the end result is pretty mind-blowing. It has saved us countless person-years. I’ve been incredibly satisfied, says Niemelä, describing the change brought about by Huoneistotieto.fi.

In the past, even just mailing out notices of general meetings was a daunting task.

-First, thousands of invitations were printed, and the managers at the time carried them home in bags, where child labor was used to put them in envelopes, stamp them, and take them to the post office. With the current system, invitations are sent out in three minutes, and not a single piece of paper even passes through our office at any stage.

Niemelä believes that the major challenge facing the property management industry is that, with the advent of digitalization, it has been necessary to develop tools to streamline operations. However, the owners of a housing cooperative cannot be forced to use digital services.