4 Most Common Problems in Commercial Real Estate Management

Moderan customers manage more than € 4 billion worth of assets and 8 000+ leases all over Europe. Commercial real estate portfolios come in all shapes and sizes but they often face similar problems. Moderan is an all-in-one solution for Commercial Real Estate management, combining properties and spaces management, lease rent-roll tools, automated utility calculations and thorough reporting. It is as flexible as Excel, but easier to use. 

Moderan loves to work with real estate managers who come up with interesting and innovative tenant-centric solutions. And we offer them the toolbox to manage even the most complicated CRE portfolios. 

Even though all our customers are different and some have very specific needs, the most common Commercial Real Estate management problems are roughly the same for them all. Solving these problems give CRE owners and managers significant gains in revenue and property value. 

Here are 4 of the most common issues of CRE lease management. 

1. Scattered information 

Most CRE owners manage at least 50 leases, but usually hundreds or thousands. Managing the information is tough, reporting even more so, especially if you have hundreds of leases and each of them with very different terms. Often CRE managers are still using Excel and/or some legacy software that no longer matches their day-to-day needs. Their lease information is not centralised and automated. Managing the portfolio takes a lot of manual labour which wastes time and causes errors in the data. 

SOLUTION: Moderan keeps all your property and lease information in one place, for everyone. You get an instant real-time overview of the properties. All reports are always up-to-date and only 1 click away. And, you can give each property manager access only to the properties that they manage, while you have an overview of the entire portfolio. 

2. Changing space size and vacancies

Managing space size changes and vacancies is one of the key challenges in CRE. The space one tenant occupies can consist of one or several units. And the size of each space can change constantly – in a shopping centre, any new tenant would usually have their space totally rebuilt at the beginning of their lease. 

All these changes in spaces need to be automatically reflected in rent and utilities calculations, but even more so in all your portfolio reports. Not only is the space distribution between tenants changing, but the total leasable area of the building would typically change when a new office tenant chooses to rent a whole floor, including the corridor between the cabinets.

SOLUTION: This is the area where Moderan is particularly useful. You can easily manage all spaces, their sizes and their history. All vacancies are highlighted by colour, so you get an instant overview across your portfolio. And you have a history of prior tenants and rent prices for each space.

3. Keeping track of deadlines

In any CRE portfolio, there are always a bunch of deadlines coming up with different spaces. For example insurance requirements, upcoming indexation windows, notice periods for regular contract termination, etc. Missing those deadlines can cost the landlord some serious money. 

SOLUTION: Moderan gives you timely reminders and puts you in control of your deadlines. This means both email reminders and a task list of upcoming (and overdue) tasks. 

4. Utility calculations

Calculating utilities in Excel can take hours, if not days. You have to take into account all the vacancies, mid-month tenant changes, different contractual exceptions, etc. There’s a high risk of making errors in Excel (see problem 1 in this article) and you might end up with reimbursement claims from the tenants. 

SOLUTION: We have built a solution specialised on Commercial Real Estate management, with a standardised setup and a powerful tenant exceptions management tool. You only have to import the readings (or have them integrated with a remote metering system), insert the utility charges and your monthly calculations can be done in a matter of minutes.

Find out more about the topic and watch a live demo of using Moderan software from our webinar.

If you have more questions in detail, feel free to arrange an online meeting with our team lead specialist and we will be happy to answer all your questions. Just click on the button below and book a free online meeting. We speak 6 languages.