Maintaining the day-to-day operations of a commercial property can be draining. From screening prospective tenants to scheduling routine building maintenance, there’s a seemingly never-ending list of tasks on your plate at all times. But being a great property manager takes more than crossing items off your to-do list.
Here are five habits of successful property managers to help you improve your tenant retention, increase productivity, and be more proactive in your day-to-day.
1) Find Ways to Stay Organized
As a commercial property manager, you probably find yourself being tugged in every direction. From finding new tenants to occupy the space to maintaining the property to collecting rent, you need a method to keep everything on your to-do organized so nothing slips through the cracks.
By investing in commercial property management software, property managers can spend less time on the administration side of things and spend more time on the parts of the business that will drive additional revenue streams. With a variety of software on the market, look for systems that will help you keep track of the following:
- Monthly expenses
- Rental income
- Rental turnover
- Lease renewals
- Work orders and service requests
- Building maintenance
These are only a few of the many elements commercial property managers need to keep track of on a day-to-day basis. Utilizing property management tools will enable you to monitor these metrics closely while simplifying the organization process.
2) Have a System to Screen Tenants
One of your biggest responsibilities as a commercial property manager is ensuring all the spaces within the building are occupied with tenants. However, you don’t just want any tenant — you’re looking for tenants that will pay their rent on time, cause minimal headaches, and plan to stay in the space for a long time. Increasing your tenant retention starts with executing a system to successfully screen prospective tenants. This is another place where technology can help reduce overhead by screening the applicants and narrowing down the quality prospective tenants that the property manager should get in contact with. Bringing in the right tenants on the frontend will same you time, money, and headaches since you’ll have to find fewer replacements to occupy the empty tenancies.
3) Understand the Types of Commercial Properties
No commercial space is exactly the same — and they vary even more depending on the industry they serve. To be a successful commercial property manager, you need to understand the types of properties you’re going to be working with. Understanding the ins and outs of retail space, office space, restaurant space, and more will help you find more qualified tenants that are the right fit for each of your properties.
4) Be Accessible to Your Tenants
As leases come up to their time of renewal, you hope that your tenants will choose to renew. What reasons have you given them to continue their time at your property? As the commercial property manager, one of your top priorities should be to keep your tenants happy by being both accessible and dependable.
If a tenant has a question and isn’t able to get a hold of you by phone or email, they’re going to get frustrated. If someone submits a maintenance request that takes more than a week to get resolved, they’re going to lose trust in your ability to get things done. No one likes to feel ignored, and doing so repeatedly will make your tenants frustrated (and look for another property that values them).
Find ways to go above and beyond for your tenants to build a business relationship with them. By doing this, you’re making them confident in your ability to manage the property which will increase the likelihood of them resigning with you.
5) Get Ahead of Problems Before They Happen
No one wants to work in a building that is falling apart or is an eyesore from the street. Your job as the property manager is to keep the commercial space looking and operating smoothly. But this doesn’t mean you should only be fixing problems as they come up — you need to be proactive in building maintenance. The needs will differ depending on the type of commercial property, so evaluate your space and see what proactive maintenance can be done. Is there landscaping that should be completed on a regular schedule? Are there small problems that will lead to more costly issues if not resolved now? Find ways to improve the building and your tenants will notice the effort that you are putting in.
Are you looking for a property manager who will have your portfolio’s best interests in mind and do whatever they can to continually increase your property’s value? With Price Commercial Management, you can rest easy knowing that your commercial properties are taken care of.