Property Managers: One Contractor Across a Portfolio

Management companies are one of the property types we work with directly, and the problem they bring is not really a carpet problem. It is that a portfolio of buildings tends to accumulate a portfolio of arrangements: this tower has a contractor, that one uses the janitorial company, the third calls somebody when it looks bad.

Each arrangement may be individually reasonable. Together they produce a situation where nobody can answer basic questions about the estate.

What consolidation actually buys

The obvious argument is rate, and it is the least interesting one.

The real gain is comparable information. When every building is assessed the same way — areas listed separately, each with square footage and a usage rating of extreme, high, medium or low — you can finally see which properties are consuming maintenance and which are not. That comparison is impossible when each building was quoted by a different contractor using a different method.

The second gain is one schedule. Carpet work is seasonal, and demand across South Florida concentrates hard between September and November. A portfolio booked as a portfolio gets its windows; twelve buildings booking independently in October compete for the same nights.

The third is one billing line. An annual programme resolved to an equal monthly payment turns an unpredictable, lumpy cost into a fixed one — which is generally what determines whether maintenance is approved or deferred.

Buildings in a portfolio are not interchangeable

Consolidation should not mean uniformity, and this is where it usually goes wrong. A single frequency applied across an estate over-cleans the quiet buildings and under-cleans the busy ones, which is the same mistake as treating one building's floors as one floor — just more expensive.

A residential tower, a multi-tenant office building and a mixed-use property have different soil profiles, different constraints and different windows. What should be standardised is the method of assessment, not the schedule that comes out of it.

Not every building needs the same relationship

Portfolios usually contain buildings in genuinely different situations, and there are four ways to arrange the work rather than one:

• An annual programme — a fixed, agreed schedule with a known annual cost and equal monthly billing. Right for the buildings that matter most and are busiest.
• A flexible arrangement — an agreed price list for every service, plus an agreed frequency of contact. The only commitment is taking the call. Right where a manager cannot or will not commit to an annual figure.
• In-house support — where a building already has custodial staff or a janitorial contractor maintaining the floors, we train them and write the maintenance recommendations rather than replacing them.
• A combination — the building's own staff handle spotting, properly equipped and trained, and we do the work that needs equipment and certification. This is the most common outcome in practice, and usually the best value, because spot response has to be immediate and a contractor cannot be immediate.

A portfolio will typically use three of the four at once. That is not inconsistency; it is matching the arrangement to the building.

What to standardise across the estate

Four things, and they cost nothing:

• The assessment format — same areas, same usage ratings, same services listed per area, so buildings can be compared
• Matting — 94 per cent of soil in any facility walks in through the doors, and matting is the cheapest intervention in the portfolio
• Spot response — the same kit and the same four-step training in every building, because this is where carpet is actually saved
• The replacement cost figure — recorded per building at the top of each programme, because it is the only number that puts maintenance spend in proportion

Restoration is separate, per building

Where a building has already been let go, the initial restoration clean that brings it back to its best achievable condition is quoted and paid separately from the ongoing programme.

Across a portfolio that separation matters more than in a single building, because it stops one neglected property inflating what looks like the running cost of maintaining all of them.

More at property management companies, or arrange assessments across your portfolio.