Property Management Overview
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT: (As defined in Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia - at the time of writing.) A Property Management company is tasked with the responsibility of managing the multiple aspects which come along with the ownership of real estate. This is much akin to the role of management in any business.
Role: One important role is that of acting as liaison between the landlord and tenant. Duties of property management companies include accepting rent, responding to and addressing maintenance issues, advertising vacancies for landlords, and doing credit and background checks on tenants. In exchange for the service they provide, property management companies charge landlords a percentage of the gross rent collected each month (typically 3-10%), in addition to lease commissions. If disclosed in the management agreement repair costs may be marked by some property managers. Some property management companies also manage home owner associations (HOAs).
In addition to managing income and expenses related activity, property managers may also manage construction, development, repair and maintenance on a property. The direction / choreography of repair / maintenance are quite a large port of a property manager's function. Property manager relation with Tenants gives a face to the Landlord and provides them the necessary buffer servicing their desire to profit and distance themselves from their tenant constituency.
There are many facets to this profession, including participating in and/or initiating litigation with tenants, contractors and insurance agencies. Litigation alone is at time considered an entirely separate function, set aside for trained attorneys. Although a person or persons will be responsible for this in their job description, there may or may not be an attorney working under a property manager. Special attention is given to landlord/Tenant law and most commonly evictions, non-payment, harassment, reduction of pre-arranges service, and public nuisance are legal subjects that gain the most amount of attention from property managers. Therefore, it is necessity that a property manager be current with new laws and practices in their given localities, cities and states.
Nation and local property management associations serve as a valuable resource which provide assistance in keeping up on current trends in these areas.
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FACILITY MANAGEMENT: (As defined in Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia - at the time of writing.) In business, facility management is the management of buildings and services. The services are sometimes considered to be divided into "hard services" and "soft services"; hard services includes such things as ensuring that a building's air condition is operating efficiently, reliably, safely and legally; soft services includes such things as ensuring that the building is cleaned properly and regularly or monitoring the performance of contractors (e.g. builders, electricians). The term "facility management" is similar to "property management" but often applied only to larger and/or commercial properties where the management and operation is more complex.
It is the role of facility management to ensure that everything is available and operation properly for building occupants to do their work. The facility manager generally has the most influence upon the quality of life within a facility. Facility management may range from the small scale (e.g. single small building custodial services) to the large scale (such as Johnson controls' operation of Chrysler manufacturing) or even on an international scale (e.g. global service provisions to a multinational corporation). Some facility management companies (e.g. Regus, evoma and Habitaz) have grown to simply provide environments which other organization may rent on demand in order to do business in a "hotel" environment.
In the UK and other European countries facilities management has a wider definition than simply the management of buildings and services. The definition of FM provided by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and ratified by BSI British Standards is:
"Facilities management is the integration of processes within an organization to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities."
The British Institute of Facilities Management has formally adopted the CEN definition but also offers a slightly simpler description:
"Facilities management is the integration of multi-disciplinary activities within the built environment and the management of their impact upon people and the workplace."
In Australia, the tem Commercial Services has replaced facilities management in some organizations. Since commercial services defines services other than just looking after facilities, such as security, parking, waste disposal, facility services and strategic planning.