Ciminelli has been managing commercial real estate for over 30 years. The relationships we enjoy with clients, neighbors, and business leaders are formed through listening and understanding their needs. A recent conversation with our team of property managers revealed that prospective property management clients often ask similar questions of the team. Trying to understand the impact, cost, risk, and benefit of hiring a property management team to help manage your building can be overwhelming, and so we welcome the questions. Below, we’ve shared a handful of those that are most commonly asked.
Q: How does outsourcing Property Management save money?
A: There are a few ways hiring a professional Property Manager can save you money. The first has to be the level of experience our team has. With over 30 years of property management experience there are very few scenarios our team hasn’t faced. Having that information at our disposal helps avoid common pitfalls, delays, and expense building owners and tenants face. That same expertise helps extend the life of building systems like HVAC, electrical, and plumbing through scheduled maintenance and known issues. Industry knowledge translates quickly to savings and efficiency.  In addition to that wealth of knowledge, you only pay for the service you need. If you have a maintenance request that needs our attention once during the week, you only pay for those hours. Dedicated maintenance or property management staff in your organization are an overhead cost day in and day out, regardless of the need.  And finally, our relationships in the industry give us the ability to leverage vendors and suppliers for preferred pricing and high levels of service and response beyond what your portfolio would attract. These savings on snow removal, preventative maintenance, and related services can be significant over the term of a contract.
Q: I already have a facilities person, why should I hire you?
A: Our team often works with customers to understand how we can collaborate with existing property management staff. Historically, our team partners easily with existing staff members providing them the extra help they often need. Managing capital projects and unexpected repairs and providing coverage during vacation periods or high-volume periods can be invaluable. Often, our team is able to share information on specific products, equipment, building systems, or vendors that can save time and money in your daily operations. Again, you only pay for those services you use, so flexing our expertise and time to support your in-house team makes a lot of sense and is quite common.
Q: What are the benefits of using Ciminelli’s Property Management team?
A: There are several benefits we talk to customers about, but the primary focus is on generating a level of savings on your real estate operations, enhancing the experience and efficiency within your space, and giving you back a large part of your day to focus on your core business. Ciminelli’s Property Managers identifying savings through our vendor network, employing preventative maintenance schedules, and skilled repair, but the depth of our real estate expertise can also deliver value on management of large projects, oversight of insurance needs, and real estate taxes. Those are the quick answers, but the reality of engaging with our team means delivery of efficiencies and experience in all areas of real estate. The real estate bench strength is invaluable to our clients.
Q: What can I expect in the first year?
A: This is different for all of our customers. The obvious answer is savings, excellent service, and the opportunity to shift your focus from your real estate to items more core to your business. The long answer is best told through a recent experience at a building we manage. You’ll appreciate immediately the full power that is available to you as a property management customer of Ciminelli – take as much or as little as you want. On a Saturday evening, a failure by a utility sparked a fire that spread to the interior of the building. The space was entirely destroyed by fire, smoke, and water. A long-standing customer, our building tenant knew they had a great partner as they navigated through this once in a career event. Ciminelli’s 27 million square foot portfolio provided several temporary office options ensuring business operations could continue. We worked with the insurance provider to navigate the claims process, documented losses, and utilized members of our corporate services team, and extensive contacts in the insurance industry to understand best practices. Our team coordinated a plan to clean, salvage and ultimately renovate the interiors, managed vendors and contractors, and ultimately completed the construction project that spanned 18 months. A single-point of contact with a wealth of real estate resources at their disposal made the difference for the customer and found them back in business at their original location quickly. This is an extreme situation but points to the possibilities, even in year one, or day one of a property management contract with the team at Ciminelli.
Property management is an often-overlooked item for building and business owners. Hopefully these questions and answers help fill in some of the gaps in information and provide the detail needed to change the way you navigate your real estate needs.