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What is Property Asset Management in Real Estate?

Asset management is an increasingly popular trend in the modern real estate market. It entails the care and maintenance of facilities and business buildings to cultivate their market value and eventually maximize their returns – real estate and other related assets. Effective real estate asset management helps streamline the operating costs and increase the efficiencies in the end.

The process of property asset management mainly relates to the physical assets supporting the daily business operations. The assets are classified as either movable or immovable.

Immovable Assets: These assets include office units – indoor and outdoor, retail, and industrial units. Utilities such as sewerage, water, power, fire alarms, and lighting also fall into this category.

Movable Assets: They include every asset not attached to the immovable asset ranging from machinery and equipment to printers, vehicles, photocopiers, staff uniforms, signage, IT equipment, and others.

The process involves tracking and monitoring the financial value of each asset while recording their appreciation/depreciation over the years. It includes utility management, workspace management, lease management, preventative and reactive maintenance activities, security management, cleaning, and overall hygiene.

The management and visitor tracking, which are vital aspects in ensuring the safety and security of your business premises and facilities, are also part of property asset management.

How is Real Estate Asset Management Different from Regular Management?

Asset management entails tracking and monitoring a client’s assets (company) with the intent to cultivate their value. It includes both tangible and intangible assets – digital assets, fleet, IT hardware and infrastructure, machinery, and equipment. Asset management software aims to maximize investment returns – getting the highest possible value out of the organizational assets.

On the other hand, real estate asset management is more about optimizing operating costs and meeting employee needs and their workspaces.

What is the Responsibility of a Property Manager?

A property asset manager is responsible for monitoring and tracking all assets related to a building and its facilities. The goal of a property manager is to ensure that these assets and facilities deliver the utmost value in line with the organization’s core business goals while creating the employees’ best and most proactive working environment.

These professionals are also known as facility managers, property managers, asset managers, and building managers. The suitability of each title used depends on the scope of the underlying job and reflects what they do in different businesses.

Typically, property asset managers keep an accurate register of all property-related assets that require care, maintenance, and replacement. Their job revolves around the asset life cycle – a collection of essential info (asset name, type, and financials), monitoring the asset’s performance, and keeping the owner updated on everything, including those that need replacements.

Besides, these managers are also responsible for planning asset maintenance jobs and being accountable for building services, including parking, cleaning, and security. They may also be in charge of conducting asset risk assessments, analyses, and reporting their findings to the relevant authorities.

What are the Benefits of Real Estate Asset Management?

Properties account for between 5% and 20% of today’s fixed asset costs. The primary goal of effective property asset management is to help your business pinpoint these inefficiencies and opportunities to promote efficiency and cost-effectiveness on the premises. Other benefits of property asset management include:

  • Accurately tracking and maintaining assets to ensure maximum returns in turn
  • Providing a detailed report of asset performance to help identify existing challenges
  • Optimizing the workspace to promote employee performance and productivity
  • Servicing the assets regularly to ensure optimal performance and keeping history
  • Providing an in-depth understanding of operating costs

How Can Property Asset Management Enhance Your Business?

Asset management software is a vital tool in property management designed to make the process more efficient and manageable – it automates and simplifies the number of processes involved in the whole procedure. It also ensures cost-effectiveness by handling multiple tasks in the least possible time.

You don’t need to hire a whole team to manage the facilities. Instead, all you need are a few employees to run the software. That way, you don’t incur the costly expenses of running and managing human capital.

An effective asset management solution also gives a holistic view of all assets and facilities on the premises – this is helpful for property managers in charge of managing multiple sites in different locations and countries. Businesses with numerous assets also find the task valuable as it makes it easier to monitor and keep track of all assets effectively regardless of their location or time.

This software can also come in handy in managing work order requests, scheduling preventative and reactive maintenance, reporting/giving feedback, and self-service requests. Other solutions are designed to cover move management, space management, and occupancy management for different floor plans and work areas. The latest asset management solutions are mobile-friendly and web-based, making it possible for property asset managers to be highly responsible and work without restrictions, whether on or away from the site.

Property asset managers manage assets on behalf of their clients – the owner – while making crucial investment decisions to help them (clients) grow their portfolios. These managers also invest in the care and maintenance of the assets – to minimize their depreciation rate and mitigate the risk exposure. The role entails monitoring market changes and trends and keeping up with the latest financial, political, and economic news.

Asset managers can also take part in the management of real estate – in such cases; they operate under the same principles as asset management and the financial market. However, they focus on maximizing the value of the real estate property for investment purposes, unlike real estate property managers – the latter handle the daily activities of a property’s operations and its physical structure.

Overall, a real estate asset manager is not the same as a property manager who handles the daily operations of a property. While they are commonly used interchangeably, they may seem similar, but their responsibilities vary, as explained above. For more information regarding real estate asset management, get in touch with GUIÓN PARTNERS today.

 

https://comparesoft.com/asset-management-software/blog/a-complete-guide-to-property-asset-management-and-its-many-benefits/

https://www.propertymanagementguide.co.uk/resources/general/what-is-property-asset-management-versus-property-management

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040815/what-does-asset-management-mean-regards-real-estate.asp