Challenging REITs’ Thinking on Property Management

Genova: “These are the people who drive how the real estate gets run.”

WASHINGTON, DC—A year after CBRE introduced a property management services program expressly for publicly traded REITs, the platform has more than 45 million square feet under management, with a pipeline of opportunities with other REITs. Growing out of a study of third-party property management for REITs that was conducted by David M. Fick at Johns Hopkins University Business School and commissioned by CBRE, the program aims to save real estate trusts up to 62% in onsite management costs and 24% in management fees.

“REITs have property-managed their real estate since 1986, when they got the approval from Congress to manage their real estate,” CBRE’s Drew Genova, who heads the program along with his Strategic Account Group colleague Steve Bassett, tells GlobeSt.com. In approaching REIT CEOs with the program’s value proposition, “We were just trying to challenge that thinking.”