Any Commercial property managers and/or owners lurking in here?
Help!

So I am a Realtor who somehow managed to get a couple investors who I manage their commercial properties on the day to day and also find new properties for them.  They are mainly office parks, retail strips and office warehouse combos. 

The problem? I am being asked to start handling more properties from the success of the current ones I manage. I  REALLY feel like I need to connect with others who are experienced in the industry cause literally everything so far has been Google and obsessively reading. I will not be able to handle the new properties by myself and I feel like I am getting big enough with business to start hiring not only assistant for me but also to pull in some maintenance personnel. 

Anyone around who wouldn't mind mentoring me? Throwing ideas around? 😬
[{"id": "ih7euhx", "text": "I find this works better if you ask specific questions here and then people give you specific answers and then we can ALL benefit from the common wisdom of the posters.\n\nWhat's your question. Be specific. Based on the little you did provide, I'll suggest a few questions you might have or might help you focus.\n\nAre you bringing in enough revenue to hire a property manager? What do you want this person to do?\n\nWhat part of property management do you feel you can't handle?\n\nYou want to hire some maintenance folks? Who is doing that now? I don't see you running around with a broom. But if you hire folks then you have to pay them where if you hire a maintenance contractor then the owner has to pay them.\n\nWhat is your relationship with the owner? Are you an independent contractor charging a percentage for property management or are you an employee of these owners? Are you getting a percentage when you do leases for space? I assume that deal is separate from your PM compensation?  Which is another percentage of gross revenue?\n\nOne advice I'm going to give you is to tell you or ask you how you keep all your separate roles straight: leasing agent, PM, buyer broker?  \n\n\nBTW, I think what you're doing makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of ways for you to make money in this situation and perform good service for your clients. I also want to suggest you read James Randel's book \"Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur.\"", "replies": [{"id": "ih7llqx", "text": "This makes sense and really sections it out for me since I am getting a bit overwhelmed and honestly not sure where to even start since I kinda just fell into it and have never had any formal training. Like when I say I fell into it i basically got my real estate license, got introduced to an investor and told \"here figure it out\" with properties that were severely underperforming- large vacancies, run down etc. \n\nIn a few years I have this investor from &lt;230k to over 1.2m in yearly rental revenue and we should hit the 1.5m mark by the end of this year with expenses under 40% for non-NNN properties- so I think I am doing pretty damn good for just \"figuring everything out\". But I have nothing to compare it too and constantly thinking I can do better. \n\n\nI am currently the only person doing everything overseeing the properties- so leasing, maintenance coordinating, keeping up with various requirements for the properties so the Fire Marshall and the City are happy with our inspections etc. I also keep up with the financial side (I have a financial background) and make sure we are keeping expenses low, increasing rental rates where needed, renovating and minimizing risk. Like where would I even start on off loading some things- I guess that is why my question was not specific since I just don't know. Yall are an amazing group and knew someone would be able to help-even if it is breaking things down like you have. \n\nRight now I get a percentage of everything-monthly, new leases and renewals and side money. I even get Christmas bonuses!\n\nI'll check out the book you recommended and will work on a better way to ask my questions. I am absolutely terrified and excited all at the same time but I know I am at my limit on what I can personally handle. Its time I start having everything properly set up and I would really love to step away for a vacation soon \ud83d\ude02", "replies": [{"id": "ih7myr3", "text": "&gt;230k to over 1.2m in yearly rental income and we should hit the 1.5m mark by the end of this year with expenses under 40% for non-NNN properties\n\nIncome or revenue?  \n\nIt sounds like you're already a pretty comprehensive property manager. One of the biggest things I would recommend you can add to the services you're already providing is a profitable &amp; return analysis. It will help the owners if/when they sell something and help you justify your expense if anyone asks/takes issue.", "replies": [{"id": "ih7nkdf", "text": "I changed it to revenue. \ud83d\ude02\n\nDo you have a suggestion on where I can find a template for the profitability and return analysis? That's a good idea. The last 2 years we have done AMAZING considering covid has been a blast to deal with.", "replies": [{"id": "iha77um", "text": "[Irem.org](https://Irem.org) has some asset management tools. You also might benefit from their more formal education and their CPM and ACoM certs. I also think you need some help since you are growing and experiencing overwhelm.", "replies": [{"id": "iha8s0d", "text": "I do know of IREM and will need to start checking it more. I'll also take another look at their certificates. \ud83d\ude0a\n\nLike I am not lying when I say I had a really bad 2017 and was told I would be good at real estate. 1.1.2018 I quit my job I was at for 10 years and jumped into this. All boutique brokerages and a ton of Google and bribing people with lunch \ud83d\ude06. It's finally paying off and I want to make sure I am providing the best service and start laying the groundwork to start expanding. I am reaching my max point and really want to leave for a week and not worry about anything or having to look at my phone. Just a week is all I am looking for. Plus if anything happens to me- it is unfair for my investors. I do have notes set everywhere for all logins and stuff but I am getting to the point where it is a disservice if anything were to happen to me. Plus why work my butt to create this only for it to die with me? Naw. We have an amazing group of tenants- over 150 who have grown with us. We do alot for the community and our people and I would love to expand upon that. Sometimes people need a month or some encouraging advice. Either way-having both parties happy with a transaction is what I aim for. \ud83d\ude0c", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ih8pyc6", "text": "Pretty impressive to keep that revenue up despite climbing vacancy from the work from home trend in office buildings.\n\nThe challenge for you is property management revenue. It sounds like you are not part owner of the properties so all your fees are based on billing for management services and commission on lease renewals and additional purchases and sales. High end for small buildings like you have is 6% management fees and these can decrease down to 3% for bigger buildings.\n\nI would recommend finding someone that can do the easier tasks or lower paid tasks for you such as a book keeper or entry level property manager that will answer customer complaints and send out a repairman for easy repairs. You also might have a big enough number of properties to have a floating maintenance man that would go from building to building to fix easy repairs and bill all the hours back to the buildings. This shouldn't increase expenses much since you are spreading 40 hours of maintenance work over all the buildings.\n\nYou will want to stay involved on big projects and keep those leasing commissions for yourself. Maybe even try to negotiate getting in on being part owner of future deals also propose having your building owner coinvest in your property management company so they aren't motivated to fire you as a property manager and hire some other service that costs less", "replies": [{"id": "ih8xx66", "text": "2020 when the shutdowns first happened everyone was very unsure. Not to toot my own horn or anything but we lost only 3 tenants and I am pretty sure without covid it would have yielded the same result.  I also was able to increase rates and some of our bigger expenses also went down due to less usage.  I am actually starting see more people come back to the office life. I personally think it is due to people wanting the break from personal vs work life. \n\nYou are correct on the PM revenue structure. I also do about 2m in sales on top a year. Not as impressive as most people here but majority are smaller commercial properties and I have been pretty close on my projections on how the property will perform.  One property my client acquired earlier this year should be at 150% increase in revenue by this time next year due to the opportunity to raise extremely low rental rates. The client has repeatedly told me that he is very impressed with the progress. \ud83d\ude01\n\n\nWith a floating maintenance that could be feasible and I am expecting to have enough properties to have at least 2 (if not more). My only confusion is how that would be handled if pulling them inhouse on paying them and collecting it from the properties-I guess how are items like that structured?\nFor admin that is a good suggestion and I guess I need to take sometime to take a step back and write out the more repetitive items I do. I would like to have a central number with prompts to speak to leasing and maintenance so I can completely disconnect and go away for a couple days and the properties still be there when I get back. \n\nYou are correct that I am not a partner or anything for the current properties. That is something I would like to eventually do down the line-is this a common thing for people to do?", "replies": [{"id": "ihbcuer", "text": "For maintenance you would hire them on an hourly rate on your property management staff, then bill back the hours to the building at an inflated rate to cover the full cost of the employee plus your overhead of billing and time.\nYour building owner will probably be annoyed at first seeing costs go up, since it sounds like you have been doing the maintenance work or at least meeting the repairman onsite to oversee their work. \nNow the building owner will still be paying your management fee plus costs for a maintenance floater. Ideally this shouldn't add much costs since the maintenance guy should cost comparably to the third party repair men you hired on the past for easier jobs.\n\nFor property ownership partnership it is common with slightly bigger properties to do syndication where you are the managing member and have other investors that are not active in the property. Essentially you are making your clients right now for a small property management fee and your typical broker commission. \nFor brokers like yourself the progression is to buy your own building when you come across a good deal and have enough money. Then you may not own enough buildings yourself so you partner with other investors to form a property management company. You are doing the reverse of building up a property management company then buy buildings to manage. Sam Zell started off with property management before becoming a property owner and management company.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ih9z9uw", "text": "I have managed large commercial portfolios ,all asset classes - AAA office, retail, industrial, office ( 4M sq.ft). Now I have been engaged in my personal projects.\n\nIf you are interested to collaborate send me a DM. I can assist you with all the things that you would need to set up your portfolio for growth ( knowledge, technology etc).", "replies": [{"id": "iha1gca", "text": "I am so sending you a DM. I really appreciate it!", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ihfx89j", "text": "One thing I think would help is for you to go and pretend to hire property management companies. Or maybe actually look into seriously hiring property management companies. But either way which you really want to see is the contract they operate under. And you actually don't need to fake anything to see one of these. There's plenty of these contracts out on the internet. But my point is if you look at the property management contracts that the professional property management companies are doing that will give you a good idea of how you should be structuring your business. That actually might help you volumes. \n\nI mean how bad your financials become if you pay a property management company 7 to 9% of the gross revenue or if you continue as property management but now you take the 7-9%?", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]