Concerned about your property losing value in the coming years? There’s no reason you can’t keep up with the market.
Perth’s commercial property market can feel fast-paced but if you stay on top of your commercial property maintenance, you’ll be able to keep pace with market demands and secure a higher return on investment, to the benefit of both you and your tenant.
As trusted local partners for commercial property management in Perth (and as commercial property owners ourselves), we’ve seen how proactive property maintenance can transform your long-term ROI on an investment property. That’s why we’ve compiled our top tips for ensuring long-term value to help you get the most out of your commercial investment property.
The Benefits of Maintaining Your Commercial Property
Maintaining your commercial property is a situation that benefits everyone. By taking thorough care of your commercial property, not only will you benefit the tenants who rent with you, but you will in tandem attract high-quality tenants who are willing to pay higher rates for well-maintained properties. This will ensure that you can secure a steady stream of income, as tenants feel confident renewing their rental contracts, and new tenants will find your property appealing, should you come up with a vacancy.
A well-maintained property will also minimise the risk of your investment by decreasing the chance of accidents or injuries occurring on the property, which would harm both you and your tenants. Creating a safe environment for tenants of a commercial property is a key element of commercial property management that cannot be ignored.
6 Strategies to Ensure Long-Term Commercial Value
1. Stay ahead with preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance is about more than just keeping your commercial property up to date with the market but is also about saving yourself the stress and financial liability of potential disaster down the line. While it may be tempting to try and lower costs by decreasing the scheduled maintenance for your building, not committing to high-quality preventative maintenance procedures can land you with hefty fines down the line, not just for safety risks, but also for small problems that have swelled to larger expenses over time.
We suggest implementing the following into your preventive maintenance procedures:
- Routine maintenance – inspections, cleaning and machine servicing on a regular basis ranging from weekly to annually. Ensure this is done for all major systems such as HVAC, plumbing and electrical.
- Proactive replacements and updating equipment – replacing worn building components regularly, even before they fail, can save the surprise of a failing component down the line.
- Tenant involvement – involving tenants in your maintenance plan can provide you with key insight into your building that helps save on both repair and maintenance costs.
As part of your commercial property management, we ensure at all times that these procedures are carefully documented for legal protection, warranty validation, cost tracking, compliance, and informed decision-making.
2. Invest in upgrading
For your tenant
Ensuring that the property is properly repaired and safe is always a great place to start, but upgrading your property to fit the changing tenant needs of the market is how you can appreciate the value of your property, helping you secure higher value long-term returns. These upgrades can include:
- Creating new spaces that fit the changing needs of your tenants or the wider demands of the commercial property market.
- Upgrading common areas and amenities to compete with other available commercial properties.
- Implementing new technologies to stay ahead of the curve and provide additional value that helps attract high-quality tenants.
For the future
Don’t let your property become outdated in Perth’s adaptive commercial property market. Sustainable features are becoming more prominent across all of Perth’s properties and falling behind in this aspect may see you lose tenants down the road to more up-to-date sustainable options. Some updates you can make in this area include:
- Energy-efficient lighting and appliances.
- Water conservation measures such as commercial a rainwater harvesting system or pressure reduction in the water supply.
- Solar panel installation.
3. Don’t ignore your outward appearance
While things may be running smoothly and efficiently on the inside, the street view of your commercial property will play a large role in attracting and keeping tenants. For those working in the retail or services sector, this is especially prevalent, as customer appeal will be at the forefront of their rent considerations.
As part of the ongoing maintenance of your property consider maintenance of the outside of your property including landscaping and façade maintenance and cleaning. You will want to ensure that the outside of the property looks clean and well organised, to leave a good impression on all potential tenants and visitors. This may also include periodic refreshes of the design, to show that the property is modern and up to date.
An important element of the external landscaping of your property is the car park, this is another area where scheduled maintenance can be applied. Parking area upkeep is crucial as it will impact the safety of your tenants as well as the wear and tear of their vehicles.
4. Ensure legal compliance
Adhering to Australia’s commercial property compliance regulations is a non-negotiable part of commercial property management in Perth. Failure to understand and comply with the legal requirements for leasing a property can result in serious legal and financial consequences that will significantly impact your returns.
As such, it is important to not only comply with all the current rules for commercial property compliance in Australia but to also stay abreast of any developments that impact the current local regulations in the areas of:
- Energy efficiency
- Fire safety
- Gas and electrical
- Asbestos management
- Disability accommodations
- Trades access
Get the Most Out of Your Commercial Property
Failing to properly manage a commercial property can result in lowered investment returns, safety issues, and undesirable outcomes for both the landlord and the tenant. That’s why we want to make it easy for everyone.
We focus on finding commercial property management solutions that work in everyone’s favour. We work closely with our clients to ensure that their solutions provide them not only with peace of mind but also improved investment solutions and returns, with less headaches. We understand the stresses that come with property investment – wasted time, subpar returns, we’ve seen it all, and as property owners ourselves, we’ve learnt first-hand how to overcome it.
Want to get more from your property? Talk to our team today.
