3 Must-Have Attributes in Real Estate Management Software
Last Updated on February 9, 2023 by Morgan Beard
Managing a commercial real estate portfolio—including offices, storefronts, warehouses, and more—has never been more complex for the modern business. Yet many businesses are still managing it all via spreadsheets, which is time-consuming, overly manual, and error-prone. Some companies turn to real estate management software to help them stay on top of it, which is a step in the right direction. However, a lot of the software on the market does not do enough to alleviate the problems that lead buyers to it in the first place.
If your team is considering purchasing real estate management software for the first time or changing vendors to improve functionality, it can be overwhelming to know how to evaluate what is out there and which attributes and features you should prioritize.
A Team-Driven & Collaborative Interface
Real estate management software should bring teams together. It should enable teams to make rapid, strategic real estate decisions, while proactively adapting to the changing needs of their businesses. If you’ve worked in commercial real estate management, then you know it can involve a lot of paperwork. When documents are difficult to access, disorganized, or siloed, collaboration breaks down and timelines slow drastically.
So when you are looking for real estate management software, it’s key to prioritize features that enable collaboration and teamwork. During the transaction process, software should provide a 360-degree view of what needs to happen, when it’s due, who needs to do it, and how tasks are progressing over time.
Real estate management software should also provide a central hub for the people, files, tasks, and processes directly involved with making important real estate decisions. It should provide customizable task and process workflows that deliver valuable context and accountability, because every business is different and there is no such thing as one-size-fits all when it comes to real estate.
A Focus on Productivity
Similarly, we recommend prioritizing software that is designed to improve productivity. Team members should be able to pull other employees or third parties into the lease process when necessary, so that there is a seamless way to hand off work.
Additionally, there should be a centralized location to track tasks, ensuring they are not just completed, but done correctly and in a timely manner. Project and task management features should introduce discipline to your process through templates that can be used as-is or customized to your unique situation. Automated alerts and notifications are another piece of key functionality that can ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Busy work is the enemy of productivity, so look for a tool that streamlines cumbersome processes throughout the real estate transaction and portfolio management lifecycle. This will enable the team to focus on what matters most – finding the right deals for the business.
Data-Driven Insights
Finally, the last attribute we recommend prioritizing during your real estate management software search is data insights. When investing in this type of software, you want to be able to not just put all of your data in one place, but to analyze and derive insight from this data.
This enables teams to be more proactive, gaining visibility into potential risks and opportunities in the portfolio, while also empowering them to make smarter, more informed decisions. With data-driven insights, teams can optimize their portfolios based on the needs of the business by analyzing individual property costs, risks, and opportunities.
1 + 1 + 1 = Way More than Three
Many businesses today report increasing pressure to gain rapid consensus and execute on real estate decisions amid a complex and continually shifting environment. For most teams, email and spreadsheets just don’t cut it anymore. Teams need a smarter and more proactive way to rapidly gather, organize, share, and analyze critical information.
To keep up with increasingly dynamic space needs, teams must adopt new strategies and toolsets to manage real estate transactions and portfolios. Only then will they be properly equipped to make the rapid, strategic decisions that ensure their business’ long-term success. With the three criteria in this post in mind, you should be better equipped to make optimal real estate decisions for your business.
Occupier’s transaction and portfolio management software brings teams together to make rapid, strategic real estate decisions, and proactively adapt to the changing needs of their businesses.
