Community Planning: The Role of a Commercial Property Manager
With hundreds of thousands of property managers working to protect the assets of commercial properties, planning and managing these communities, plus so much more, they play an important role in the functioning of our commercial landscape.
Property managers are responsible for everything from tenant relations to forecasting and contract management. To prevent liability, protect tenants and build an effective commercial community, if you are searching for a new team member for your property or looking into a new career path, you may want to understand the role of a community planner.
Here are some of the roles of a community planner in a commercial property management team:
- Financial Management
- Rent Collection
- Property Management
- Southeast Venture Property Management
Financial Management
In general, a property management company helps commercial owners achieve their financial goals. From accounting to budgeting, rent collection and more, the role of a community planner spans many buckets in terms of financial management. Commercial property managers provide owners with financial statements that provide insight into the building’s performance. The monthly financial statements a property manager often provides can include anything from the following:
- Variance Analysis
- General Ledger Overviews
- Income Statements
- Balance Sheets & Credibility Standpoints
- Rent Roll Reconciliation
- Delinquencies, Statement of Cash Flows, and so much more.
As well as tracking the financial status of the property, a property manager should also establish a budget that reflects the owner’s goals, assuming the property performs as expected. Reports can be customized depending on each commercial property and owner’s unique needs. Community planning goes hand in hand with financial analysis here. As a community manager will have their hands in the day to day operations of a commercial property, they will need to protect the financial assets, as well as plan appropriately based on such.
Rent Collection
A community planner or manager will also likely play the role of rent collector. In this case, the role of a commercial property manager is to ensure tenants pay their rent in order to meet ownership goals. With multiple tenants with different rental terms and rates, all with separate account balances, meticulous record-keeping is needed.
To keep track of each tenant’s account balance and rent schedule, property management companies maintain tenant ledgers. In the case of rent arrears or lease violations, a property owner usually has the right to put the tenant in default via the community manager. Property managers must thus act on behalf of property owners as agents with the proper property knowledge who can pursue default remedies when necessary.
Property Management
Additionally, a property manager will be responsible for managing the actual property. This can entail the physical condition of the property, as well as creating a sense of community within commercial or more residential properties (such as an apartment complex). An excellent property manager will have a detailed maintenance schedule for performing periodic inspections of the property, lighting, and HVAC.
Assuring the infrastructure of the property is in good repair and making the necessary repairs when needed is put in the hands of their responsibility. They might also recommend improvements to your property, such as new landscaping. Even though updating a property can be costly, keeping it in good condition can pay off in the long run. A property that does not have an updated landscape will be uninviting and unfruitful. An effective property manager or community planner will be able to ensure a commercial property will have more appeal and retain more tenants, customers and so much more.
Southeast Venture Property Management
Here at Southeast Venture, we value a property manager who is patient, business oriented, has great organizational skills and communicates well. With that in mind, our property management team is committed to building long-term relationships with our clients.
If you’ve been looking to join a new property management team, our property professionals are responsible for all aspects of the operation including:
- Financial forecasting and annual budget preparation
- Monitoring income and expense outcomes for forecasts
- Lease administration and documentation
- Tenant relationships
- Construction management for capital improvement or tenant work
We are looking for those who have experience managing diverse property types, large and small, including:
- Office buildings
- General
- Medical
- Shopping centers
- Warehouse and distribution
- Mixed-use properties
If you’re interested in our commercial real estate development services, contact our team at Southeast Venture today!
