In commercial and retail property management, you should have a process and a system to help you attract new property management clients. Over time the income from the management portfolio will support the agency and provide stability when sales and leasing activity is low. Here are some tips from our Newsletter.
There are a number of different ways to attract these clients to your business, with some processes being more successful than others. Here are some ideas to help:
- The best way to attract new business of this nature will be through and at the time of the completion of a successful sale or lease transaction. The property owners are primed for the discussion. It will be a matter of showing them why a professional management service will be of value to them. Perhaps you could save them time, money, or remove the frustration from the tasks involved.
- Some clients manage their own properties, and on that basis they will be targets for new business. That being said, they will typically not have the necessary systems to do the job properly. The larger the property, the more difficult it will be when it comes to tracking income, managing expenditure, and invoicing tenants. You can add to those requirements the other issues of lease management, risk controls, and tenant mix optimisation. All of these things require skill and knowledge. You can market your brokerage around the specialized services in each case.
- Review the properties currently being managed by your competitors. It should be fairly easy to understand and identify those properties that are being poorly managed. In most cases you will see evidence of that underperformance when you inspect the property and talk to the tenants. The skills of the manager will reflect in the quality of the management. Get in contact with the owners of those distressed or difficult properties, and offer a no obligation proposal to take over the property.
- Understand the leases that apply to the tenants within a property. You may find that the management fees are a recoverable item within the outgoings categories of the leases. This then says that the fees that you charge to manage will not be a financial burden to the property owner. They will simply be a recoverable item in the outgoing structure and invoicing process. Providing the property has a suitable level of outgoings when compared to other local properties, your fee recovery should be quite simple and achievable.
- The larger the property, the more complex the management process. That being said, you can provide specialised services when it comes to the tenancy mix, vacancy management, and outgoings control. All of these factors will give you leverage when it comes to winning the property management appointment.
So the message is quite clear. There will be some new business to win when it comes to managing quality properties and quality clients. The best strategy to achieve that is to identify the right time in the property cycle, and the right services to offer your clients.
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Commercial Real Estate Online 