REoptimizer^® Blog

Effectively managing your company's portfolio of sites requires more than just skill, know-how and luck. It also takes powerful commercial real estate software. Here are five features that typify class leading offerings and that will give your company the best possible performance.

Managing your company's real estate portfolio isn't a task to be taken lightly, and it isn't one to do on your own. Not only is your portfolio completely dependent on a series of very small details, but it is also extremely fault intolerant. After all, missing a single date could cost your company thousands (or millions) of dollars. With this in mind, commercial real estate software is a crucial part of your overall enterprise software package. Here are the top five reasons that large and small businesses add packages like REoptimizer® to their technology platforms:

Choosing a lease term isn't always as simple as it seems. The old rules of thumb -- that long-term leases are cheaper while short-term leases are flexible -- still hold true. However, given that business is changing at a faster pace than ever before, more and more companies are finding that the flexibility benefits of a short-term lease are cancelling out the savings that can be found by signing for a longer term. The ease of management that comes from commercial real estate software also supports this decision.

As the field of commercial lease administration software programs continues to expand, choosing the right one for your company gets more and more challenging. There are a few features, though, that are non-negotiable. Programs that support these four crucial functions will give you the basic functionality that you need to effectively manage your real estate portfolio.

Property management without commercial real estate software is much like visiting a sausage factory or watching Congress make laws. You could do it, but you probably wouldn't want to. While each commercial real estate package offers different features, the feature set offered by REoptimizer is a good benchmark of how adding software can help your company with project management.

Robust commercial real estate software can be an important tool for making great decisions with your portfolio. However, its limitations are the same as any other system. The data you get out of it is only as good as the data you put into it. With that in mind, great commercial real estate decision-making requires a more holistic approach:

Commercial real estate software is a quantum leap above any other method of tracking your corporate real estate portfolio. (Yes, even better than Excel.) However, like many enterprise programs, its ability to impact your bottom line depends on how you use it. The more data that you put into your software, the more benefit it can deliver. Here are five types of information that belong in your software so that you can maximize its capacity to save you time and money:

Manage Critical Dates

Using the built-in critical date management feature is an excellent way to manage lease expirations, option notifications and CAM reconciliation dates, to name a few. While you could simply enter them in your primary calendar, your other demands and obligations become priority throughout the day. Portfolio milestones could be easily overlooked amidst your busy schedule. Breaking critical dates out into a separate calendar makes it easier to manage your portfolio.

Organize Site Data

Using the document management feature is an excellent way to keep all the information about your entire portfolio in one, very accessible place. Given a large portfolio, it can be hard to remember whether your 34,000 or 43,000 square foot space is in Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon, or to remember which has a 24-foot ceiling and which is 26 feet high. Keeping this information straight is important for managing your portfolio.

In addition, you can place all leases and other essential documentation right into the system. This puts all the necessary data you need right at your fingertips so that you can simplify and enhance lease administration. No more rummaging through file cabinets required.

Enter Expense and Adjustment Breakdowns

By entering all of your real estate expenses and projected rent adjustments into your commercial real estate software, you can plan your cash flow. You will be able to tell what your monthly rent and CAM expenditures are at a glance and prepare for increases so that you can notify accounts payable and adjust budgets.

Entering expense data into your commercial real estate software also makes it easier to benchmark sites against each other. If you have spaces of the same type in the same community and one costs $52 for rent and CAM while the other two are $44 and $45, you might want to investigate the more expensive one. Adding usage data, such as kilowatt hours consumed per square foot can also help you track which spaces are meeting your sustainability or cost-saving goals.

Use Performance Data

You can leverage your commercial real estate software as a tool to make smarter, better decisions by using performance data. For instance, adding sales data lets you benchmark your retail sites on the basis of their sales per square foot or their revenue to sales ratio. Include head counts to compare spaces based on employees per square foot. These figures will give you the knowledge to make great decisions in the future when you need to acquire more space.

Use Market Data

While many commercial real estate software programs stop at the end of your company's portfolio, REoptimizer® adds the ability to integrate market data. This lets you benchmark your corporate real estate against the competition. You can quickly identify which spaces are at or below market rents and which are too expensive compared to similar spaces in their immediate markets. With this data, you can strategize renegotiations with landlords, location closures and relocations.

If you need to make real estate decisions that save your company thousands or more, you need to try REoptimizer®. This commercial real estate software system provides all of the tools mentioned above and more.

Contact us to see how it can help you.Are you ready to save 33% or more in real estate expenses? Try a free demo of our commercial lease administration software, REoptimizer® today: