Inside Property Management's 'Huge Comeback' Post-COVID
The industry assumed even greater prominence in the midst of the pandemic.
The role of asset managers has become increasingly more critical in a post-COVID landscape, experts at this year’s GlobeST ELITE Women of Influence said in a packed panel discussion in Lake Tahoe, Calif., today.
“I do a lot of third party management, and in 2019 I was nervous about what it was going to look like,” said Jennifer Trent, Partner and Director of Asset and Property Management – NAI Southcoast / SCP Construction and Development. “People weren’t hiring or outsourcing – they were doing it themselves, and I was nervous.”
But within the first few months of the pandemic, Trent says her portfolio doubled.
“Owners did not know how to have hard conversations, or how to make these tough decisions during the early days of COVID,” she said. “So they called in an expert and third party management made a huge comeback.”
For her part, Trent says she had little trouble with mom-and-pop tenants during the pandemic, largely because Florida’s COVID policies relaxed more and earlier than other jurisdictions. Instead, “it was my corporate tenants where I was having those conversations,” she said. “But we were wide open – our people were still eating out and shopping and doing business.”
According to panelist Angela Acquistapace, property manager at Kimco Realty, managers played a critical part in engaging with one-on-one with tenants throughout the pandemic, and since the decline of COVID, have since shifted their focus to help those brands better engage with their end users.
“We were the winners during the pandemic because we have grocery anchored shopping centers and it was a necessary distribution point,” Acquistapace said. “But we also saw the pain our smaller operators and tenants were feeling. We had to have those conversations, we had to discuss those delayed rent deals, and from a property management standpoint those were really difficult.”
And Acquistapace says that as the pandemic evolved, Kimco doubled down on a commitment to what she deemed a “hands-on connection” with tenants.
“We realized we were going to have to deploy entrepreneurial solutions and encourage them to think outside the box and modify their business systems,” she says. “The tried and true was not going to work anymore and now since the pandemic is over we are deploying a lot of resources to tenants to help with marketing, social media, and engagement with events.”
Check back soon for more updates from the GlobeSt ELITE Women of Influence conference in Lake Tahoe, Calif.
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