With the rise in the number of small to medium businesses, there’s a good demand for commercial property spaces.
Commercial real estate investors could not have benefitted more from this, and thus, the US market is seeing a rise in commercial real estate investing and transactions.
Managing a commercial property is an entirely different ball game than managing a residential property. It’s common to feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks you’ll be required to complete as a commercial property manager.
So, if you’re ready to explore the private commercial lender real estate property management sector, here are some things you should consider to manage commercial properties successfully. Remember that it is definitely harder than managing a couple of residential units, but it is an excellent way of increasing your revenue streams.
On the other hand, if you’re an owner of a bunch of commercial properties and want to understand how you can effectively manage your portfolio of commercial properties investments, this blog will guide you through as we’ve put together some pro tips on how you can successfully manage commercial properties, both as a commercial real estate asset management company or as an individual commercial property owner. Read on.
Pro Tips to manage commercial properties and rock at commercial real estate property management
Number 1 – Pay close attention to how your commercial property looks like: Appearance is crucial.
Majority of the business tenants look for a commercial space that looks amazing. The exteriors of your commercial property are going to be the outlook of all the businesses who wish to put up their office in the building and thus the appearance becomes so important.
As most of the businesses that look for commercial real estate properties rely on walk-in customers, the overall appearance of the building matters a great deal to them.
Put it simply, as a rule of thumb – An attractive building or commercial space attracts more customers and builds a certain perception of the business. It makes it super important for the property managers to pay close attention to how the building looks.
To break it down further, you may want to look into the following aspects that’ll contribute to an overall good appearance of your building:
A) The Exteriors of the property – The Exteriors of the property include everything from the painting and windows of the property to gardening, parking spaces, landscaping, roofing, signages and the like. One of the most important things to consider while taking care of the exteriors of commercial property is gardening and landscaping. Hiring a dedicated gardener who will maintain the greenery to in the property is a great idea. It helps add a great sense of aesthetics to your commercial property.
B) The Interiors of the property – The Interiors of the property include taking care of doorways, hallways, carpeting in the common areas, some architectural designs and choosing a bunch of beautiful minimalistic paintings that’ll vibe well with the theme of the building. We cannot miss out on the importance of appropriate lighting in the building and as a property manager, ensuring that the building has enough lighting – natural or artificial, is crucial.
C) Utilities and Facilities – The next very important thing to look into is the utilities and the facilities of the property. Since there would be many businesses in the same building, with a team working with them – having a well planned and functional facilities and utilities is very important. Maintaining bathrooms, break rooms, stairways, elevators and escalators, kitchen areas, lounge areas, air conditioning units, water heaters if any, in a good working condition at all times is very important.
It is quite common that one or more of these utilities and facilities shut down at some point in time. During those times, it is important that you immediately do the needful to bring back these facilities to working conditions again without delaying it. Your business tenants will be grateful for taking immediate action as every single day is crucial for a business for achieving their daily targets and goals.
Number 2 – Build a close familiarity with your commercial property: Both the space in itself and the business tenants who operate from those units
Being familiar with your commercial property provides you the leverage of exactly understanding what repairs need to do to your building. Along with this, being familiar with your tenants too is important as you’ll get an idea about the expectations of your tenants from you, as a property manager.
By building good relationships with your tenants, you increase their chances of continuing the lease with you for longer periods. Breaking the ice with your business tenants and taking steps towards maintaining a great rapport with them will surely put you ahead in the game as these tenants will want to stick with you, and will be more open to talking about the concerns they have with respect to the building instead of providing you a short vacancy notice. Bottom line: Focus on building solid relationships with your business tenants.
Number 3 – Keep upgrading your building
Managing commercial real estate properties is all about playing the game by keeping the newest trends and fashions alive in your property. Nobody wants to run their business in an old fashioned building with outdated facilities.
Making new upgrades to your building is surely an investment that will pay off as it’ll help retain hour existing business tenants and also attract newer business tenants. This way, you already have a good demand for your property even before there’s a probable vacancy in the building.
Follow what’s happening and what’s new in the commercial real estate property sector and try to bring in newer upgrades to your building. It also helps build a great goodwill for your property which will shoot up sales for your business tenants, and eventually increase your revenue streams too.
Number 4 – Stay up-to-date with the newest technology that could benefit your commercial property
Providing the best of the technology with respect to the WiFi systems, best workstations, software, and surveillance systems are necessary to help your business tenants thrive and have a smooth flow running their individual businesses.
Updating your technology from time to time is very important to keep your business tenants satisfied and to also help shoot up their sales.
This works even better when the revenue generated from your commercial property is not only through the direct rental income but also through the percentage of monthly business income you charge from each of your business tenants, over and above the basic rent.
If you follow this dual system of collecting rents from your business tenants, investing in newest technology shouldn’t be much of a headache as it will shoot up their sales and in turn, increase your revenue too.
Number 5 – Bring in systematic approaches to successfully manage your commercial real estate property
There’s nothing wrong with maintaining your commercial property spaces the old-school-way by relying solely on your memory or the classic pen-and-paper way. But, bringing in simple systems and tools can change how effectively you can manage these properties and also save you a great deal of effort.
Look out for applications that’ll help you make simple to-do lists and prioritize your work needs to be done first. It will take so much stress off your shoulders, and the entire process of managing your properties become super simplified and effective.
Number 6 – Build good relationships with your business tenants through strong communication
Just like any other business, good communication is an integral part of great real estate asset management business too. Talking to your business tenants helps you understand their most important concerns and issues with the property. It also gives you an idea about what technological updates makes the most sense as these business tenants can tell you how much ROI they can expect from such investments. Besides, it helps in maintaining healthy relationships with them, thus making them feel more comfortable working with you and extending their leases when the time comes.
