Outsourcing Property Management? A Comparative Study

Focussing on institutional investors, this paper analyses models for the procurement and delivery of property management functions in commercial properties. In the paper, a distinction is drawn between property and asset management functions. For a range of international markets, the paper investigates approaches to outsourcing property management used by large real estate investment organisations and investors’ perceptions of the key advantages and disadvantages of outsourced property management. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with managers responsible for overseeing procurement and delivery, the paper provides insights into the current state in property management outsourcing, the structure of the property management sector, the attributes of outsourcing contracts, perceptions of the rationales and/or benefits of outsourced property management, and issues of governance and delegated authority.