Whether you’re a property manager or a maintenance professional, one of your key responsibilities is finding ways to maintain and manage your buildings efficiently. This means ensuring that you are spending wisely to optimize your budget, especially as we head into a potential recession.
Cost control is a trusted practice of identifying and reducing operating expenses to increase the profitability and sustainability of your property. Modern-day building operations’ cost efficiency depends on three main factors – Planning, Automation, & Tracking. If you can work on these areas, you will save time and money and earn long-term value through happy customers.
Among the types of property operations costs, Maintenance is the most expensive area of expenditure. We encourage property management and maintenance professionals to focus on the following five actions to drive guaranteed cost efficiency.
- Create a Culture of Quality and Safety – One of the best ways to reduce operating costs is to ensure quality and safety in all aspects of building management. This includes investing in quality materials and systems that will last longer, as well as implementing safety protocols for staff and tenants alike. Investing in quality and safety now can save you money when it comes time to repair or replace faulty items or equipment that was of poor longevity or not installed correctly. Ask yourself: do I have a strong set of standards that I hold my employees and vendors to that ensures quality work?
- Automate Preventive Maintenance Schedules – It is essential to stay on top of preventive maintenance tasks such as changing air filters, cleaning carpets, checking smoke alarms, etc. Planning for all and automating some of these tasks allow you to take proactive action rather than waiting for something to break down. Not only does this save time, but it also prevents costly repairs from popping up unexpectedly due to a lack of preventive maintenance. Ask yourself: do I set up regular reminders to inspect and maintain my assets or do I mostly react to breakdowns?
- Track and Monitor Vendor Performance – When working with vendors, it is essential to track their performance so that you can be sure they are providing quality services at reasonable prices and in a timely manner. Make sure all contracts are reviewed before signing them so that expectations are clear from the start. By tracking vendor performance over time, you can make informed decisions about which vendors provide the best value for money based on your specific needs. Ask yourself: do I have a system or set of tools to track and monitor my vendors?
- Know Your Assets Inside Out – You should know every aspect of your properties inside and out to identify potential problems before they become costly repairs or replacements. Knowing the what, where, when and how of your building assets helps you keep track of any changes or improvements needed, as well as identify areas where additional resources may be needed to keep operations running smoothly. Ask yourself: do I have a system or set of tools that track when I last maintained an asset and which vendors were involved in that activity?
- Find The Right Software To Manage And Maintain Your Properties – Investing in property management software can help streamline processes like tenant billing, service request management, tracking repairs and maintenance tasks, creating budgets and reports, etc. This will make it easier for property management and maintenance professionals to stay organized while keeping operating costs low by avoiding unnecessary expenses due to disorganization or poor record-keeping practices. Ask yourself: do I have access to purpose-built software to manage my properties, service requests and vendors?
Property management involves many moving parts, which makes it easy for operating costs to spiral out of control if not managed carefully and efficiently from the start. The five tips outlined above should help any property manager stay organized while keeping their building’s operating costs under control at all times.