Commercial real estate
Operating expense is an asset value decision
In commercial real estate, maintenance is not a cost centre to be minimised. Every dollar of avoidable operating expense is capitalised against the value of the asset, and every deferred repair shows up in a condition report at disposal. DFM gives property teams the operating record to manage both.
- Owner reporting from the record
- Vendor time verified
- Tenant service measurable
What you are measured against
The gap between median and top quartile
Operating expense per square foot is the number in every owner report and every disposal model. The distance between the middle of the market and the top of it is largely a question of how much work is unplanned.
- $2.80 to $3.50
- Median commercial office maintenance cost per square foot per year
- Under $2.50
- Top-quartile cost per square foot per year
- Above 80%
- Planned work ratio maintained by top performers
- 3 to 5x
- Cost of a reactive repair against the same work planned
Figures are published industry benchmarks from IFMA and BOMA operating-cost surveys, not DFM customer results.
The operating problem
Where property teams lose control
Demand arrives outside any system
Email, the front desk and a conversation in the lift lobby. What is not logged cannot be measured against a lease commitment or used to argue for staffing.
Most execution is contracted
Lifts, cleaning, landscaping and HVAC are delivered by firms you cannot supervise, and the invoice is usually the only record produced.
Coverage is thin per building
One engineer across several assets means the week is planned around driving time, and small problems become capital ones between visits.
Owner reporting is manual
The quarterly pack is assembled by hand from photographs and memory, which is why it is quarterly rather than continuous.
Response times sit in the lease
And in most portfolios nobody can state the current figure without building a spreadsheet first.
Budgets are set from last year
Because nothing records what recurring work actually consumes, next year is last year plus a percentage.
Tenant service
An intake channel tenants will actually use
A QR code in the lobby, a link in the tenant handbook, and a form that takes thirty seconds with a photograph. No account and nothing to install, because every barrier converts a logged request into an unlogged complaint. The request lands in one queue with the building and the floor already attached.
- Response and resolution measured against the lease commitment
- Duplicate reports of the same fault merged into one job
- Automatic notification back to the tenant on completion
- Demand data that supports a staffing case at budget time
Programmes
The recurring work behind a Class A building
- Daily lobby and common area rounds
- Cooling tower water treatment and legionella controls
- Generator and fire pump testing records
- Fire door and life safety inspections
- Backflow preventer annual testing
- Building envelope and post-storm surveys
- Elevator machine room rounds and contractor records
- Vacant suite condition and turnover reports
- Emergency and exit lighting testing
- Loading dock, waste and service area checks
- Restroom and janitorial service verification
- Contractor attendance and insurance currency
Reporting
The quarterly pack, without the week of assembly
Because the record is written as the work happens, an owner report is a query rather than a project: what was maintained, what is deferred, what tenants asked for, what it cost, and the evidence behind every line. Multi-owner portfolios report per client, so one owner never sees another’s estate.
Questions people ask
- Can we run several buildings and several owners in one account?
- Yes. Work, people and reporting are scoped by building and by client, so an owner report covers only that owner’s assets and a regional manager sees only their portfolio.
- How does this help at disposal or refinancing?
- A complete maintenance and condition history is the difference between a condition survey that confirms your position and one that discovers deferred work you cannot account for.
- Do tenants need accounts?
- No. A tenant reports from a link or a QR code and is notified when the work is complete.
- Can we bring across tenant request history from our current system?
- Yes, from an export or a spreadsheet, as part of the rollout.
Keep reading
- Work Order ManagementMost work order implementations do not fail at selection.Open
- Vendor ManagementMost of a facility budget is spent with companies you cannot supervise.Open
- Multi-Site FacilitiesThe failure mode of a distributed estate is not volume.Open
- RequestsRequests arrive by email, by text, at a service desk and in a corridor.Open
Ready to see DFM in action?
Book a demo and see the platform running against a building like yours.