Issues in Building Maintenance: Property Managers' Perspective

A survey was conducted of the largest 230 property management firms in the United States to investigate their current maintenance practices. The findings shed light on property management firms' policies concerning outsourcing versus using in-house maintenance services; their use of preventive/routine/corrective/deferred maintenance; the frequency of their meetings with tenants; their policies about cleaning, inspection, repair, and replacement; the way they select maintenance contractors; the severity of the maintenance-related complaints they receive from tenants; the extent to which they are involved in the design process of the buildings they subsequently manage; and the frequency with which designers come back to assess their buildings' performance after the projects are completed. Property managers should be cognizant of building users' concerns and they should also make designers aware of these concerns; the performance of buildings is likely to be enhanced if designers and property managers take action in the design and operation phases, respectively, in response to users' concerns.