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How You Can Start Managing Your Real Estate Portfolio Effectively

Managing the real estate portfolio effectively is a real burden for large organizations. Some real estate departments have to manage over 5000 properties which is nearly impossible to do without a decent structure.

I have encountered quite a few real estate professionals that still manage their portfolios in Microsoft Excel, and have indicated just don’t know where to start.

Does this sound familiar to you? Then this post is dedicated to you.

This post is about how you can start managing your real estate portfolio effectively using an Integrated Workplace Management System.

1. Standardize

The first step in managing your Real Estate Portfolio effectively is to standardize the real estate administration. Instead of focusing on what you have to register in your IWMS, focus on the output. You need to standardize the output as it defines the input.

You should ask yourself the following question: What output do I need to be able to manage the real estate portfolio?

Don’t deep dive into the details. Details are not important at this point. Focus on the bigger picture. Aggregate.

I have divided output information in the categories below:

• Geographical Information (Region, Country, State, Address, ZIP, etc.)
• Financial Information (Total Maintenance Costs, Total Depreciation Costs, Total Costs of Leases, Total Project Expenditure, Budget Exhaustion, etc.)
• Operational Information (Total Number of People, Total Sq. Ft, Departments, Business Unit, etc.)

You need to define what information you need to manage your real estate portfolio effectively.

2. Collect

Standardizing the Real Estate Administration process is the most important step when you start managing your real estate portfolio effectively. It paves the road for the second step; collecting the information.

Collection of standardized information needs to be organized centrally. When you have agreed upon what information you need, start collecting that information as soon as you can. Set a deadline. The deadline will be your zero measurement.

Tip.
Create an Excel template that can be imported automatically in your Integrated Workplace Management System. This reduces the manual labor and thus, the errors.

3. Delegate

After the zero measurement you need to delegate responsibilities for updating information. It is impossible to constantly update that information yourself. Responsible staff should have authorized web access to the IWMS to update their information.

Make sure you set a deadline for updating the information and hold people accountable for the correct input of the information. For example, every first Monday of every month, all information about the properties you’re responsible for needs to be updated.

Tip.
Authority can enforce the process to be completed. Therefore buy-in from senior managers is a great advantage.

4. Manage

By now you have standardized the collection of information and delegated responsibilities to the correct individuals within your organization. It is time to start managing your real estate portfolio effectively.

Managing your real estate portfolio should be based on key performance indicators (KPI’s) that are actionable.

I have included some of the most important Key Performance Indicators below:

• Costs per Headcount, FTE
• Costs per Sq. Ft
• Costs per Building
• Sq Ft. per Headcount, FTE, Department, Business Unit
• Leased Sq. Ft vs. Owned Sq. Ft
• CO² emission per Building, Headcount, FTE
• Churn Rate per Department / Business Unit

Tip.
Ask your IWMS Vendor to provide a list with Key Performance Indicators they support.

5. Evaluate

The last step to start managing your real estate portfolio effectively is to evaluate all steps described above on a periodical basis. You need to cyclically evaluate:

• Your required Real Estate output information
• The quality of the delegated information collection
• The KPI’s you manage your portfolio by

So there it is in 5 steps, an approach for you to start managing your real estate portfolio effectively. This approach will ensure you won’t get caught up by the details.

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