Property management and facility management: two perspectives for real estate management
Although they are often confused, the two terms property management and facility management indicate two types of property management that are very different from each other, both in terms of the type of professional skills required and the tools used in their implementation.
When we talk about property management, in fact, we primarily refer to the management of what is normally referred to as “real estate”, another English term that indicates a real estate for residential purposes together with the land that surrounds it and all the natural resources contained therein. Certainly, this definition reminds us of the image of a large manor house surrounded by a park, but it can refer, more generally, to the management of real estate assets mainly for residential or commercial use.
To manage this type of property, specific skills are required in the field of maintenance and cleaning for the common parts of buildings, including any green areas, in rents collection and invoicing, in the relationship with tenants in general and finally in any ancillary services management, such as the concierge service, laundry or similar.
On the other hand, facility management concerns buildings for commercial use and it is a collateral activity, but necessary, aimed at ensuring effectiveness for the different sectors that contribute to the company’s core business. In other words, facility management takes care of all those goods and services that are essential for the company’s day-to-day operation. A facility manager deals with a long and varied list of things: from buildings management and maintenance to services such as the plumbing and the electrics, air conditioning and heating, from the implementation of the canteen service and the security service to the management of a fleet of company vehicles.
Also in this sector, as we can deduct from the large number of activities to be managed, it is necessary to have professionals coming from different sectors and a general competence based on the intersection of several disciplinary areas. In fact, it is necessary to consider technical aspects, about the building architecture or industrial plants in particular, aspects of human resource management and economic elements of resource optimization, also from an environmental point of view.
Large assets management of real estate funds
When a property manager becomes manager of a real estate assets intended to produce financial income, like the one owned by real estate funds, he must face particular challenges, which add complexity to the usual tasks of his work.
To ensure that real estate assets, especially large ones, are actually profitable, in fact, two conditions must occur: the property value must be increasing, or at least constant, and the tenants’ arrears in the rents payment must be reduced to a minimum.
There are many factors concerning the first aspect that influence the market value of a property and many of them evidently escape the property manager’s control. However, the support to the real estate value given by maintenance and modernization works is part of the tasks of those involved in managing the real estate assets and it guarantees the maintenance, at least, of the intrinsic value of the building, freed from the components linked to market fluctuations.
On the other hand, tenants default is largely linked to the ability of those who deal with property management. A correct and fair tenants’ relationship management, in fact, combined with a scrupulous rents collection and invoicing, is able to drastically reduce the phenomenon of non-payment by tenants, at least in ordinary macroeconomic situations. Except exceptional events of economic crisis at local or global level, the non-payment of a rent is linked, in most cases, to a situation of conflict between property and tenant, sometimes also generated because of an objective mismanagement of the property.
Therefore, thanks to the work of a well-prepared property management as AKNO, it will be possible to make a decisive impact on the profitability of a real estate investment by rationalizing the resources invested, decreasing the default of tenants and safeguarding the intrinsic value of the buildings under management.
Service management: work to make others productive
The service management is, in simple terms, the management of the services necessary for the functioning of a productive company.
This definition is inevitably broad and it should be applied, from time to time, to the different concrete situations. The service management of a manufacturing company, for example, will deal with both IT systems and the production lines and plants maintenance, while the same activity in a hospital will take care of cleaning, security, canteen service and related supplies, in addition, of course, to the ubiquitous information systems.
AKNO has a long experience in service management in the building sector, both in the property and in the facility sector. In fact, being a logistic park builder has pushed the company to deepen its skills in multiple fields, starting from architecture and plant engineering, to get to the management of human resources, energetics and income optimization.
To conclude, whether it is necessary to manage large real estate assets from the property management’s perspective, or it is necessary to deal with industrial structures or to make a management service for any type of company, AKNO can make its own experience and its collaborators’ professionalism available.
