In commercial and retail property management, you will come across some landlords that are quite difficult to work with. Over time the relationship between the property manager and the landlord can become quite stressful (even toxic) and impact the processes on the property.
Eventually the landlord will become disgruntled and unsatisfied. In such case, they will soon move their portfolio to another real estate management agency. They could even repeat the process again a few times!
From the very start of a property management appointment it is essential that the relationship between the manager and the landlord be nurtured and encouraged. Essentially the manager has to understand the needs of the landlord, and provide the necessary solutions in a timely way. That being said, it is very hard for a landlord to respect a property manager that is lacking the skills or the knowledge required to do the task successfully.
Make no mistake, the skills and the knowledge required here is specialized, and only the best property managers should be employed for the task. On average, the salaries of commercial and retail managers are more significant than residential managers. That is a reflection on the required knowledge, expertise, and work input required.
At the top of the scale, shopping center managers and the most highly paid in the industry; however they work really hard for it. Managing, marketing, and leasing a shopping center are not easy processes.
If a new or junior property manager is employed in your agency, it is essential that they be given the support of an experienced and talented senior property manager for quite some time.
There are many things for the new junior manager to learn including but not limited to the following:
Lease administration and lease implementation – The interpretation of the lease document can be quite challenging task and requires reasonable intelligence on the part of the property manager when it comes to understanding legal documentation and property management situations. Lease administration also requires special skills when it comes to tenant mix management, tenant analysis, and vacancy management. The income for each property under management should be optimized for the plans of the landlord and the prevailing market conditions.
Tenant management systems and processes will need to be implemented. Some tenants can be extremely challenging and require a lot of ongoing daily management. This is very common when it comes to the management of retail property. If you have a shopping center with many tenants, the tenant management requirements will be very high. Tenant management processes should incorporate good business procedure and attention to detail. Many disagreements can occur as part of the day to day property management activity in any investment property.. The notes of tenant discussions and conversations that you have on a daily basis will always be critical to future evidence requirements. Protect yourself and your conversations through the maintenance of good records. Take plenty of notes. The organized in your business processes.
The reporting and control requirements for each and every landlord will differ. This means that the property manager will need to understand what each landlord expects when it comes to income, expenditure, maintenance, reports, tenant mix, and vacancy management. Some of these factors will have limitations and approval requirements to be referred to the landlord.
Financial activities within the property will vary considerably across the categories of income and expenditure. Optimizing income and managing expenditure is all part of the daily process when it comes to property performance and property optimization. Financial management is reasonably straightforward when it comes to a single tenant in a single property. Providing you understand the terms of the lease, the income and expenditure budgeting process can be easily undertaken for your client as the landlord. It is where you work on complex properties with multiple occupants that the issue becomes far more challenging. In such case, you need to look at the variances of income and expenditure over the entire year, including all the tenancies, and the complex property usage. Attention to detail is required.
Taking all of these things into account, they are the three basic categories of control when it comes to commercial and retail property management.
When all of these activities are correctly implemented and controlled, the respect of the landlord is easy to achieve and maintain. Most landlords just want to know that their portfolio and property are correctly managed within their expectations and investment plan. That is why they call it an agency service.