Best Practices to Manage Multi-location CRE Portfolio 

1. Have a CRM software for real-time inventory data 

When your business is functioning in multiple locations, it is difficult to keep track of all facilities, inventory, and sales in real-time. And if you plan on doing the whole work on excel sheets, it is sure to be a living nightmare for your whole team. You need CRM software like Salesforce or ZOHO to keep track of your inventory. 

With the right technology implementation, you will no longer have to go through bulky paperwork or boring excel sheets to find data. Your staff can upload data on the CRM dashboard from remote locations, and you can be immediately updated about sales or tenant turnarounds. To reinstate our beliefs, Market Watch data believes that as many as 88% of excel sheets have errors in them. It is in your best interest to avoid this path and rethink your strategy a little. 

2. Employee multiple property managers 

If you are a CRE business owner, it is impossible to manage all your properties and units alone. You need to employ property managers for each location and assign a certain number of units under each. This will speed up your work and provide each property manager enough time to focus on sales, property tours, facility management, marketing, and operation of properties and offer a wholesome experience to existing and potential customers. 

3. Use property management software too 

There are many different property management technologies in the market, like MRI software or Yardi software. This technology selection in property management can automate many of your tedious office work like back office accounting, rent collection, quick CAM reconciliation, tenant onboarding, and much more. Such software also has an easy-to-use dashboard, and your employees will hardly need any training to work on these. There is no more trouble in handling bulky data for your multi-location CRE projects when everything can be remotely accessed with the right SaaS integration plan. 

4. Customize each property based on the adjacent market 

Do not use the same formula to develop all properties under your portfolio. Even if the same investors and landlords own all your CRE properties, you need to customize your strategies of marketing and development plans for each property based on the market demand. Some locations may demand open office spaces, while others may have a demand for hybrid workspaces or co-working spaces. Do proper competition analysis and market research to understand what is trending in demand. 

5. Always use a construction management software 

CRE property constructions are enormous and time-consuming, and quite impossible for humans to keep track of all the logistics of it. It is a much more ingenious idea to start using construction management software like Procore to help in project management. Construction management software can make coordinating between vendors, investors, landlords, and property managers much easier. 

You can remotely track work progress without visiting the sites and take steps to fasten the work if need be. Your offsite and onsite teams can connect in real-time and share data for better management. You can also use this software to check the safety of sites and maintain all health and safety compliances. 

6. Get help in asset management 

You can use your existing real estate property management software to manage all your assets. Working and developing properties in multiple locations will see a sudden growth in your assets. Do not leave them unattended; understanding which assets are giving you better returns and which need to be upgraded can be kept track of with management software. You can keep all your tenants happy at all locations if you auto-upgrade the assets at their facilities before complaints start piling up. 

7. Proactively react to customer needs 

No matter how overwhelming your number of properties is, you need always be proactively in reacting to customer needs. You need to take constant feedback from your tenants and residents to upgrade your properties accordingly. If you are proactive, then you will be able to maintain a healthy tenant-landlord relationship and get ahead of the competition in no time. 

You can also use RPA bots made by UiPath to automate responses to customers when they raise issues on tenant portals. These RPA bots will human actions for you and also make your customer's time feel valued while you sort out other matters of importance.