The management of apartment blocks in the Dublin tends to be concentrated on a number of big companies.

Wyse, for example, has a huge management business, looking after 30,000 apartments and houses in 200 different locations.

Dublin agentcy Colliers International is now taking on the residential management business after successfully launching a commercial property management service last year.

The agency’s decision to engage heavy hitters Aidan Grimes and Brian Cleary has already paid off at a time when many shopping centres have not only lost traders but also lost their way.

Colliers prides itself on being able to come up with a marketing strategy to reverse the fall-off in business at these centres. Twelve months on, the company is already looking after more that 185, 806sq m (two million sq ft) of retail space.

Now it is also turning its attention to the residential market at a time when the rental sector is facing immense problems because a huge number of owners are not paying their service charges. A solution may be more difficult to find in this case.

Colliers plans to run the new management service in conjunction with its residential letting business which is managed by Clodagh Barry.