When it comes to managing your commercial property, especially in these tough economic times, you don't want to leave anything to chance. Your property represents a significant investment: physically, emotionally, and financially, and you always want to make sure it's being properly cared for. Sound commercial property management is compromised of 3 basic components: marketing, day-to day operations, and reporting. Here's a little bit about each.

Marketing

Let's be honest about it: without an effective marketing strategy, you risk having your property be only partially full, having subpar tenants, or- worse- having no tenants at all. A good property management team will ensure that the following is handled in a timely manner:

-- using a marketing plan to attract and keep quality tenants
--retain tenants by providing superior service at all times
--maintaining the physical aspects of the property in order to make it a desirable location for tenants.

Day-to-day Operations

One of the main reasons you hired a property management team in the first place is so that you wouldn't have to worry so much about day-to-day operations. Your management team should effectively collect rents, arrange for reasonably-priced maintenance services from reliable providers, supervise all aspects of property maintenance, and obtain lowest-cost insurance coverage.

Reporting

Because your property is important to you, you want to be kept "in the loop" about what is happening with it. Your team should provide you with accurate financial reports, develop and prepare an annual budget, and suggest ways to improve your property when appropriate.

Your property management team is an integral part of your investment: make sure to choose one that makes the successful fulfillment of the above 3 components standard.

Rems Inc. (http://www.remsinc.com/) is a Salt Lake property management. Ryan Coisson is a freelance writer.