retail shopping mall

The Best Ways to Contribute to Retail and Commercial Property Management Clients

When you provide commercial or retail property management services to a client with their property portfolio, you have some choices as to how you do things. 

You can treat the task as a job and just follow ‘industry standard procedures’, or you can bring some considerable strategy and added value to the client and their property.

You can contribute to the performance of the client’s property investment.  What’s your choice?

The best ways to work in commercial and retail property management is to regard that segment of the industry for what it is; an ‘investment service’ that specialises in improving the outcomes of property ownership and investment. 

When you take that ‘position’ you soon understand that you are an industry specialist that can be sought after in the local area by those owning property.  Are you ready to work with more investors and property owners?

retail shopping mall and escalators
Know your property and the tenants comprehensively

Contribute to Asset Performance this Way

Let’s look at the ‘contribution’ factors of what you can bring to your clients and their properties as a property management specialist:

  1. An improved tenant mix – when you look at a group of tenants in a property, there will be factors that you can work on, such as moving tenants to other locations in the property at the right time or providing location or tenancy adjustments to those tenants that need leased space changes. Recognise the pressures that tenants can be experiencing and then look to how the overall mix could be enhanced given the existing tenant profiles in the property.
  2. The ability to stabilize and then grow property income – a tenant retention plan is a good approach to apply to a managed asset and an existing tenant mix. It involves looking at the property in today’s terms with the current tenants and the existing documentation and then deciding how those tenants can be encouraged to stay in the asset over time.  This retention approach should also identify those tenants that are of no benefit to the property.  Those tenants can then be moved out of the asset when the respective lease comes to an end.
  3. A lowering of vacancy rates for properties – vacancies will occur in a property, so look for them well in advance. Talk to the current tenants and those others in the marketplace that could occupy in the future.  The ultimate target here is to reduce the threat of vacancy in an investment property.  Chart the upcoming lease expiries and renewals in the property for the coming 18 months.  The visual approach helps in the planning process for vacancy reduction.
  4. A reduction approach to arrears – like it or not, arrears will be an issue for some tenants from time to time. For some tenants, it is a seasonal factor only that will resolve.  For others, it is a factor of business change and or the local economy and commerce  Implement an arrears tracking process that can help you work closely with the good tenants as they pay down their arrears and put pressure on tenants that are commercially not viable as a business.  Watch the arrears by timing and by amount.  Keep the numbers under control.
  5. An improvement in property documentation – there are different ways to allow a tenant to occupy space. Lease documentation will require close monitoring as to terms and conditions as well as critical dates.  Get to know the variations of lease documentation and make recommendations to your clients as to how a lease upgrade or change could enhance the asset as an investment.
  6. A reduction in the risks associated with property ownership – look for the risks in property ownership and occupation. Some of those risks could be physical, natural or seasonal, while others could be economic.  Stay ahead of risk events in property as it ages and watch out for the associated risks that come to a property from the customers, visitors, occupiers and tenants.

From these simple ideas, you can contribute significantly to your client’s property through directed property management strategies and control systems.  That then becomes the foundation of professional property management services across the office, retail, and industrial sites.

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