If you’re in the real estate business or your business owns a few properties, you will soon be finding yourself on the receiving end of a lot of responsibility and it is often wrapped up in legality. There is great risk in getting things wrong and it is essential that you act correctly in accordance with the boundaries of the law pertaining to commercial property management. You need to make sure that you have a good team of people that you can call on as and when you need them. If you have many properties in your portfolio, it may be such that you have a team of people on retainer. Unless your portfolio is huge, it probably won’t be viable to have everyone on the payroll and so a consulting basis is probably best. Here are a few people you may want to have at your fingertips.
Contract lawyers and lease experts
You could be in a position that involves drawing up complicated lease agreements tied to commercial property. For this, you would want to find a solicitor commercial lease expert that can advise you on what needs to be included. They will know how and what you need to do to cover all the loopholes and gaps and will include text that will cover all bases. A commercial lease needs to be watertight because when things go pear-shaped, you need it to work for you and protect you from legal-related damages.
Property agents
Having a few agents that you know and trust and who are reliable is a great asset for when you need them. If you’ve built a long-term relationship with a few agents, they will also understand how you like to operate and what your expectations of engagement are. Depending on what your needs are, they can help with either finding properties for you to buy, selling your properties, or finding tenants to rent your properties out. If you use the same agents regularly, you can also negotiate a lower commission.
Managing agents
Unless managing property is your mainstream business, you may want to consider using a managing agent. This frees you up from having to deal with all the small nitty-gritty of daily management and they can deal with all the small issues. Some of these issues will be around maintenance, payment collection, electricity consumption, and water availability. While it might be an extra cost to incur, you would rather spend your time growing your business than dealing with frivolous tasks.
Maintenance team
Similarly, to the need of a managing agent to take away the time spent dealing with tenant issues, you will want to have a good, punctual, effective and affordable real estate maintenance team on standby when you need them. If you find a good team to work with, you may even use them over others even if they’re slightly more expensive as the value pays itself off in the quality of the work that they do.
Conrad Armer 
Barbara Ratliff