2014 Top Property Managers

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Smooth Operators

By Mike Ratliff and Jack Kern

Responsive property management is one of the most important factors in achieving a strong bottom line. The firms in the 2014 CPE-MHN Ranking of Top Property Managers collectively operate over 13.5 billion square feet of commercial space, no small feat considering the economic climate, challenging residents/tenants, and an ever-evolving institutional real estate landscape.

As such, we would like to applaud these firms for maintaining an average occupancy above 91 percent for 2014, and improvement of nearly 90 bps over 2013 occupancy levels. This is especially impressive considering that on average, these companies expanded their square footage managed by 9 percent over the past year.

We have found that the best firms have developed the specialization necessary to provide stellar results in many of the property categories and understand how important it is to develop the teams of property and asset managers, assistants and technicians to keep buildings running smoothly. Our evaluation of space managed, occupancy levels, rent per square foot and other factors over the past few years suggested that management practices and building performance will continue to demonstrate stable growth over the next year.

Methodology

The 2014 CPE-MHN Ranking of Top Property Management Firms utilized self-reported property characteristics for all firms. We measured square footage, number of leases, number and size of properties under management, property operations owned or managed, participation in property sectors, sustainability practices and other factors. Preference was given to those firms that had strong fundamental growth and provided services to more than one sector.

See here the list for the top property managers of 2015.