Commercial and retail property management are special disciplines of a good real estate agency. Especially skilled people are involved in the running of the management property portfolio for landlords. As part of that process it pays to have a systemised annual approach to the management year. You can break the year into 4 separate phases; each phase leads to the next.

So annually cycled property management systems help the agent and the respective property managers keep on top of the portfolio challenges. The greater number of properties in the portfolio, the bigger this need.

There are 4 distinct and main stages to the property management year when you look at any property type (office, industrial, retail). For this discussion we will base the comments on a standard financial year (July to June), although some owners and managers have used other 12 month cycles quite successfully (January to December is quite common).

Using those 4 main stages you can successfully do many things in a controlled way to help the overall property outcomes. The main stages are:

• Budget Planning (March to May)
• Financial Results Analysis (June to September)
• Tenant Mix Planning (October to December)
• Property Performance Planning (January to March)

Each of the 4 stages leads to sub-issues and events. This simplifies your management year and keeps you on some track to control and progress for your landlords.

1. Taking them separately and splitting the requirements of each here are some guidelines to which you can add any other issues specific to your area or property type:Budget Planning- review outgoings for the year to date, allow for expected vacancies, review net and gross rentals in the market, rent review analysis and expectations on a tenant by tenant basis, option term expectations, set budget targets for income and expenditure in the coming year, maintenance contracts costs and repairs expectations, assess increase potential in all outgoings for the coming year, capital expenditure projections, and landlord funding or property holding plans.
2. Financial Results Analysis- actual income and expenditure results for the year, reconciliations, arrears recovery reports, budget adjustments for current year, capital expenditure analysis for end of year, net income analysis, and property valuation review.
3. Tenant Mix Planning- Anchor tenants stability and performance, specialty tenants location and sales performance, sales figures in retail groupings, customer demographics, product and service groupings by tenant, lease expiries, vacant tenancy marketing, vacancy controls and remedies, commissions for reletting, leases for renegotiation, tenant retention plans, marketing of the property (relevant to retail), and lease documentation review.
4. Property Performance Planning- Planned and unplanned maintenance allowances, capital expenditure works planning, contractors working on the property, refurbishment and renovation planning, retendering of maintenance works (where appropriate), risk management, energy management, essential services contracts planning and compliance, building code compliance, allowances for any heritage components or restrictions, and any improvements or changes to the property.When you follow these simple rules and stages of management, the property control process gets much easier. You can now see why a property manager is perhaps the most skilful and specialised person to work in a large commercial agency.