For those entities that manage and/or invest in real estate assets, need at all times to have an updated inventory of all assets that they either own or manage. Whether this was a private or public sector property manager, real estate developers or real estate investors, need to have details of all locations were they either have existing real estate assets that are either rented, leased, sold, managed or maintained as well as white lands that are yet to be developed or sold. Assets can be buildings, houses, parks, malls, entertainment facility, stadium, schools, hospitals, clinics, roads, railways among others. Of course, those locations should include all locations either within the country itself or at any other country across the globe.
For each real estate asset that exists at any location, it should be broken down into levels such as basement, ground floor, first floor, etc. In addition, each floor should be broken down in spaces, flats, zones, segments among others. At each space or even floor, equipment assets such as air handling unit, water pump, lift, van, loose furniture among others need to be assigned. In addition, occupants which could be either by the tenant name if the space was leased out or by the name of the entity department or individual if the space was occupied by the same entity.
Since most private or public sector property manager, real estate developers or real estate investors want to increase the value of their current real estate assets, they must invest in new capital construction projects as well as refurbishment projects for existing assets at those locations. The projects list needs to include all projects either planned, on hold, in progress or even completed.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) that is configured to manage projects as well as real estate assets like PMWeb, private or public sector property manager, real estate developers or real estate investors can have a single web-enabled platform to manage, monitor, evaluate and report on their real assets portfolio as well as their projects portfolio.
PMWeb location breakdown structure will become the basis for identifying the entity’s real estate and projects portfolio. PMWeb location comes ready with most of the fields needed for defining a location including the geospatial details for fixed and linear assets.
In addition, PMWeb allows adding additional user defined fields and user defined groups. For example, those could be plot number, plot area, plot usage, building height allowed, gross floor area (GFA) in square foot or square meter, whether the plot classification is considered to be a brownfield, amber field or greenfield. Of course, additional fields can be also added if deemed necessary to better define the land plot like for example the latest valuation value for each location and the date of the valuation. The user defined field types could include currency, number, date, text, Boolean as well as values that can be predefined in a list. The same can be done for building, floor and space assets.
In addition, all documents that related to the location such as the land deed, municipality boundaries map, pictures among others can be uploaded into its specific folder in PMWeb document management repository and then attached to the location. The same will apply to other PMWeb records and imported MS Outlook email which will be linked to the location record. The same attach and link options will be available to buildings, levels and floors.
For each space, PMWeb allows capturing the details of all occupants including their planned and actual move in and move out dates. In addition, PMWeb allows capturing the details of lease agreement for each space. For leases that belong for the same tenant, PMWeb allows adding a suite of leases. For each lease entry, PMWeb allows capturing the abstract details of the lease agreement, clauses, details of charges such as rent, services, common area maintenance charges (CAM), lease escalations or adjustments among others and ledger of all payments received and charges invoiced. In addition, and similar to other PMWeb modules, text notes can be added as well as supportive documents can be attached and links to relevant records and imported MS Outlook emails can be added.
In addition, PMWeb allows capturing all expenses incurred by the private or public sector property manager, real estate developers or real estate investors for maintaining those assets. Those expenses will be captured from the preventive and reactive work orders executed on locations, buildings, floors, spaces and equipment assets. For each work order, PMWeb allows capturing the cost of labor and equipment resources and material. The rates for labor and equipment resources will be defined in PMWeb resources dictionary whereas for material the cost can be from the PMWeb material items cost database or form the spare parts inventory maintained in PMWeb.
For new capital construction, refurbishment and renovation projects, PMWeb project module will be used to capture those details and for which each will be associated with its relevant location as defined above. Although the project screen allows capturing the project’s target budget and revenue as well as target start and finish dates, nevertheless, the details of all this information will be captured in their appropriate modules for schedule, budget, commitments among others.
The information captured in the assets’ locations, buildings, floors, spaces, leases and work orders as well as the data captured for capital construction projects at those locations will become available to be reported on in the desired format and required level of detail. Those reports will be designed to fulfil the private or public sector property manager, real estate developers or real estate investors reporting requirements.
The captured information will also provide those entities with an oversight of their assets and projects portfolio showing details of leased areas, lease revenue, cost of work orders, current assets valuation, budget for capital construction projects and anticipated projects revenue. Of course, more information can be reported on as long as this was captured in PMWeb.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with 40-year service record providing project management, project controls services and project management information system to over than 400 projects with a total value in excess of US$ 400 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment, Hospitality and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker in topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 40 years he has lectured at more than 400 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and South America. He has written more than 400 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He was a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP) and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business School, London, UK.