What a commercial property manager needs to know
Once you have carefully chosen your commercial property investment, and negotiated a great deal with the purchase, you then need to turn your mind to ensuring you extract the most from it during your time of ownership.
Therefore, you either need to know how to properly manage the property yourself or you engage some professional help to handle that for you.
And in the current litigious climate, there is no way you can possibly keep abreast of all the regulatory requirements relating to property ownership.
So your next question becomes: "How do I know whether a particular property manager is up to the task?"
To help you, here are the key areas where your property manager needs to be really well versed.
1. The market and the marketplace
- Rental levels in your property's market
- The balance of supply and demand in your market
- Up-to-date records of properties, owners, tenants and service providers
2. Taxation (especially GST and capital gains tax)
- Taxation advice in relation to repairs/replacement
- Income management
- Budget forecasting
- Depreciation
- Insurance
3. The laws governing ownership and leasing of property
- Landlord and tenant legislation
- Subdivision legislation
- Essential service regulations
- Lease preparation
- Local Government Act
- Rights of property owners
- Trade Practices Act
- Anti-discrimination Act
4. Trust accounting
- Acts governing real estate agency practice
- Basic bookkeeping principles
- Cashflow management
- Budget forecasting
5. Various legislative requirements
- Health and safety matters
- Essential services
- Town planning
- Building Code of
Australia - Fire regulations
6. Building and construction
- Property maintenance
- Building methods
- Cost control
- Alternative materials
- Design and decoration
- Market requirements
- Optimum layouts
Chris Lang is an advisor to commercial property investors and gives keynote speeches and regular seminars on the best way to invest in commercial property. He maintains a blog, his-best.biz, which he updates regularly about the best way to get the most out of your commercial property investment.