N is for Network of Professional Service Vendors

The A-Z of Property Management

N is for…

N is for Network of Professional Services and Vendors.  “It takes a village.”  Successfully managing investment real estate requires having a proverbial army of experts on speed dial in a mind-boggling number of areas. While many of these resources are common and foreseen, a surprising number are things that many owners and less professional property management firms do not foresee in advance.

Most surprises when managing commercial investment real estate require immediate response in order to prevent the loss or damage to person or property or the inability to capitalize on timely opportunities.  Most good quality properties appear to run smoothly most of the time.  This is typically not because they do not experience problems, on the contrary they experience unscheduled problems all of the time, but the property manager and his or her company has thought ahead and has a network of specialty service providers to quickly and professionally respond to these problems.

Here are a few of the actual surprises I have experienced:

• a swarm of bees suddenly make your front door their new home,
• a broken water pipe Sunday at 2:00 AM requiring 30 wet-vacs,12 dehumidifiers and 20 staff,
• an A/C unit stopped working in June and you need 100’s of tons of temporary AC immediately,
• a car broke down in the exit ramp of your garage blocking all traffic,
• a group of protesters arrive mad at one of your tenants
• a chemical leak 3 miles upwind requires your immediate attention
• an unannounced inspection by City or Fire Code compliance identifies violations.
• A mentally disabled person calls the media about unfounded dangers in your building
• Equipment malfunctions entrapping people inside elevator cab
• An office tenant is discovered to be regularly living overnight in your building
• The janitorial crew lost the master key to your building
• A tenant’s employees are discovered entering & stealing from other tenant through the ceiling
• New tenant’s 1 additional electric outlet surpasses available capacity requiring new service $$$
• One tenant files legal conspiracy suit due to possible competitive tenant leasing in same building