What is property management?
Property management is the running, control, supervision and income generation of commercial, residential or industrial real estate such as apartments, warehouses, malls, detached houses etc, on behalf of the asset owner or landlord for a fee.
This is done by a property manager who can either be an individual or a company.
Who is a property manager?
The property manager ensures that the property is being operated just the way the owner wants. The goal for the owner is ultimately to make money, but can also be to improve and make the property as attractive as possible.
The manager ensures that the property is occupied, properly maintained, marketable, and income keeps coming; and on time.
What types of properties are usually managed by property managers?
Every type of real estate you can think about. This includes land, apartments, warehouses, retail centres, recreational spaces, offices, gated communities, houses and more.
Difference between Property Management and Facility Management
A term that is thrown around a lot and is sometimes used interchangeably is facility management. Are they the same thing? They are similar, often with overlapping duties, but are not the same.
The property manager takes care of the entire building on behalf of the landlord while the facility manager oversees the needs of specific tenants within the building. Take football, for instance, there are the manager and the coach. The manager is responsible for the overall team while the coach focuses on building a winning team. The property manager is the football manager in this case, and the facilities manager, the coach.
Why do you need property management?
Below are some of the reasons you’ll need a property manager as a property owner, real estate investor or developer.
- When you’re only interested in owning and making money from real estate assets;
- When you don’t want to or can’t manage the properties yourself;
- When you have too many properties in your portfolio and don’t have the time, energy or expertise to maintain all of them;
- If you have terrible people skills and can’t deal with tenants. Managing tenants includes screening them, addressing their complaints, settling disputes and ensuring tenants are adhering to your laid down rules and keeping the property safe ;
- You need someone to handle the legal aspect of owning and operating a property rental business;
- You need someone to collect rent on your behalf;
- You live too far from the property to be directly involved in its day-to-day operations; and
- You don’t have the time or skill to effectively market your property when it is no longer occupied.
Duties and responsibilities of a property manager
What does a property manager actually do?
Marketing & Sales
Market and sell your property through their referral network, social media, property portals and other marketing channels. The manager also gathers data on the real estate market to ensure they’re on top of trends and understand what the market needs in order to attract prospective tenants.
Tenant Administration
The property manager (company or individual) is basically the face of the property. The manager is the first contact for tenants. The manager handles all tenant needs, and complaints, settles disputes and enforces rules of occupancy. The manager also collects rent on behalf of the owner.
Refurbishment & Maintenance
They ensure the property is in tip-top shape and that the value of the property keeps on growing. They do this by employing maintenance services such as sanitation, painting etc as well as supervising repairs on things such as faulty electrical wiring, broken doors and so no.
Management of Lease & Tenancy Agreements
The property manager takes care of all legalities. This includes negotiating leases with tenants, setting the terms of tenancy agreements and collecting rent payments on behalf of the owner.
Serve as a fiduciary
As a fiduciary, the property manager is bound to ethically act in the owner’s best interests. This way, the manager owns up to everything concerning the property and does everything in his/her power to maximize profit, maintain or improve the value of the property and exploring new opportunities to make the property stand out.
Security & Safety
The property manager is responsible for the property and as such, security. The manager hires and liaises with a security company to secure the property by providing security devices, personnel and protecting tenants. It’s also the manager’s job to ensure the building is safe for tenants from things such as fires.
How do you become a property manager in Ghana?
There is really no formula for becoming a property manager in Ghana. In some cases, managers are friends or family of the owner who are simply helping. Other times, they are real estate agents or people with some real estate experience that manage these properties. The list below however is a simple guide one can follow to get into property management in Ghana.
- Acquire training and knowledge of real estate management from a university in Ghana such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology;
- Acquire knowledge of facilities management and duties of the facilities manager;
- Understand Ghana’s rent, safety, health, fire and EPA laws;
- Learn how to manage and interact with people;
- Gain experience as an agent or work in a real estate company
Property management companies in Ghana
Many of the property management companies in Ghana are in fact, real estate agencies. Making money for their clients is part of their management duties and one that ties in with property management. Some of these companies are also either real estate developers themselves with their management divisions or their offshoot companies. These developers rely on their in-house property managers or set up another division to manage their properties as well as others that may come.
In no particular order, below are some of the property management companies in Ghana.
- Broll (Manage the malls in Accra)
- Willows Property
- Greenpark Properties
- Elm Development
- MMC Property Management
- Eban Solutions
- Akka Kappa
- MNC Properties
- City Facilities Management
- Listening Bureau
Types of property management/managers?
There are essentially three types of property management namely, full service management, lease only management and bespoke property management.
Owner Management:
This is the most common type of property management in Ghana. Here, the landlord is directly involved in the entire property cycle, from marketing and screening tenants down to repairs and in extreme cases, handling tenant disputes. This style tends to produce the worst housing horrors for tenants.
Full Service Property Management:
Perfect for owners with multiple properties, a management company/manager takes full responsibility for the property from marketing the property, collecting rent down to the day-to-day running of the property. Here, the owner rarely if ever interacts with the tenants. The owner’s only concern is that the manager fulfills the goals set out such as bringing a certain amount of income or increasing the value of the property.
Lease Only:
Under this type of management, the manager’s sole responsibility is getting the property occupied. The day-to-day management is done by the owner. The manager will list and market the property until there are tenant. The owner takes over afterwards doing things such as collecting rent and maintenance. This typically works for single-family homes or if the owner has just one property in his/her portfolio.
Bespoke Property Management:
This is a mix of both full-service and lease only. In this style, the owner negotiates the type of services required with the manager. This can range from handling lease agreements, to screening tenants to marketing the property and attracting new tenants.
