Austin Commercial Property Management

describe the four recurring jobs -- operating budget and reporting, rent and CAM collection, vendor and maintenance management, tenant relations -- and say the owner sets strategy while the manager runs the building

property management serves the owner and the asset's income; facilities management serves the occupier and the workplace; the same building can have both, reporting to different parties

define it as the shared operating cost of the building recovered from tenants, list the usual categories, and say the lease -- not custom -- decides what is includable

describe both as ways of fixing a baseline the tenant already pays inside base rent, with the tenant paying increases above it; note a mismatched base year is a common source of disputes

explain that variable expenses are restated as if the building were near-fully occupied so a partially occupied building does not under-recover -- and that without it a base year set during low occupancy inflates later charges

controllable expenses are those the manager can influence and are often capped; taxes, insurance and utilities are typically carved out as non-controllable -- which is exactly why insurance spikes pass straight through

describe it as a tenant's written confirmation of the lease facts that a lender or buyer relies on, and say the practical risk is confirming something inaccurate you are then bound by

break it into its three parts -- subordination, non-disturbance, attornment -- and say the non-disturbance clause is the piece that protects the tenant in a foreclosure

describe the BAS as the controls layer over HVAC, lighting and sometimes metering, and note that its schedules and setpoints are where most avoidable energy cost lives

describe it as scheduled tasks tied to equipment and code cycles -- filters, belts, water treatment, life safety testing, elevator inspection -- and distinguish it from reactive work orders

explain it as EPA's free benchmarking tool and the score as a percentile against similar buildings nationally, not an absolute efficiency measure

define it as work that was due and not funded, and describe how it surfaces -- roof leaks, aging chillers, failed controls, lapsed PM records -- rather than as a line item

operating budget is the annual cost of running the building and is largely recoverable; the capital plan is multi-year replacement of building systems and usually is not, which is why the split is negotiated

explain the reconciliation mechanism -- estimates trued up to actuals, plus gross-up and occupancy change -- and name the usual drivers (insurance, utilities, taxes); never state a per-square-foot figure, that depends on the building and the lease

explain the basis options -- percentage of gross collections, of effective gross income, or a flat monthly minimum -- and say the basis matters more than the percentage; do not quote a market rate as if it were universal

gross collections pays the manager on money actually collected including reimbursements; EGI is narrower; explain the incentive difference and say to define the base explicitly in the agreement