Sparing No Expense? Well…no, actually.

I read two separate articles this week about the most and least expensive markets for office buildings. We are used to keeping expenses well below $10 per square foot for most of our buildings, even while we work to consistently improve and update them.

In both articles New York city ranked at the top of the heap in expenses per square foot. North of $20 per square foot in the big apple and $10-12 for comparable buildings in Dallas.

Not that it is easy to keep expenses for our portfolio down. We get a little break on property taxes compared to Dallas, but otherwise, we work at it. We negotiate electricity agreements, get better pricing on insurance by buying coverage on a portfolio level. And we competitively bid some service contracts every year, just to name a few of our efforts.

The payoff for us comes when one of our properties goes on the market. We get to show a prospective buyer financials that reflect our work and our strategy. Financials we can be proud of. We will just keep sparing those expenses.

Management and Leasing, together is better

I am a Property Management expert, not a Leasing expert, so my thoughts on this subject should be understood from that bias, but I believe there are some important reasons to keep both services under one roof.  I understand it’s not a simple question.  Owners may like their Property Manager, but feel a different company could do better on the leasing side.  Or vice versa.  Both services have to produce results, period.

When it is possible, however, they should be kept together.  Here is why.  When Leasing and Management teams work together, they produce better results.  They work together better when they are within the same company.   A property’s Leasing Agent can and should give the property’s Manager feedback on the property’s appearance as it relates to their leasing effort, and this communication can have dramatic and positive results on the leasing effort.  Timely introductions of new tenants by the Leasing Agent to the Manager can help get that relationship off to a good start, and smooth the tenant’s transition into the building.  These things may seem simple, but often they are overlooked when two companies are involved.  It’s challenging within the same company, and yes, even with two companies it can be done.  It’s just easier to get done when a single company has accountability.

 

 

 

Our heads are in the clouds

Because that’s where our new Property Management software is.  We are 99.99% converted from our previous ancient property management software, and we are already producing better looking reports, faster tenant invoicing, and much greater flexibility in using the software.  What’s making us crazy, though, is that we have to take the time to learn the darn thing, we can’t just hit the ground running.  It takes us humans time to learn something new, time to learn all the ways the new system can help us. We want it NOW, yet just remembering how to log in is a challenge.  We love progress, but we hate change.

We’ll start using the work order module soon, we’ll get the tenant portal up & running, and integrate the automated A/P system.  Right after we find where we wrote down that new password.