The management of commercial property is not hard or difficult, it is just different. To do it well you need to educate yourself in matters relating to:
Leasing documentation
Rent collection
Tenant management
Contractor management
Lease marketing and management
Property performance
Risk management
Energy management
Environmental management
Financial management
Investment performance
Building outgoings and financial processesThese topics form the main events and controls that are needed in a commercial property. You can and should learn them, and there is plenty of information around to get you started. A great property investment is usually a reflection of a good property manager working to a performance plan that has been endorsed by the landlord.It doesn’t matter if you manage your own property or if you manage property for others as a real estate agent, commercial property management is a specialised field and skill base where you can develop highly relevant investment skills.Before we go too far, exactly what is the definition of a “commercial property”? In many locations the terminology will mean different things and to a degree you should define that yourself given your location. For this purpose today, we will call it
income producing property of an office, industrial, or retail nature, that is owned by a property investor, or
office, retail, or industrial property owned and occupied by businesses that use the premises for commerce, service, sales, production, or manufacturingLooking at the key elements above the most immediate focus should be to build your knowledge of local, regional, and national legislation as it applies to commercial property. A solicitor will be a good point of reference to start with. Take care with retail property legislation as it is common for many locations to have specific rules and regulations that apply to how you lease and run a retail property. It is not unusual to have specific forms and processes that you must comply with when it comes to a retail tenant or lease.A good property manager brings controls and focus to a property so that it may return a stable income over the term of occupancy or investment. Given that a property is an investment for some years, it should be managed with the big picture in mind. That is almost like modelling a business plan for the property, and indeed some properties do have that level of control.Not all property investors will want to hold the property for their lifetime. Most property investors will change or upgrade the investment each 5 years or so. That is mainly driven from the fact that the property market and economic cycles produces significant change and opportunity at about that frequency.