By: Deborah Johnson Wood
NAI West Michigan established its property management division, NAI West Michigan Property Management, to help out-of-state real estate investors purchase and manage West Michigan properties.
Since then, the division has grown to include over 1.5 million square feet under management for 45 industrial, retail and office properties and 220 tenants—and that growth created three full-time jobs.
“The investors are primarily from California and Arizona and are people who like the Midwest and they’re comfortable with the consistency of the marketplace,” says Dave Smies, NAI spokesperson. “They’ve retired and are thinking about where they could put their retirement money. They come to us through relationships we have, through the web, and through the international NAI network.”
That network has 375 offices in 55 countries and some 8,000 agents bringing in about $45 billion in annual volume.
“We got into property management because we had tenants who weren’t getting quality service from their landlords, and they needed better service,” Smies adds.
“The mission early-on was to service our existing client base so the tenants would have a great experience and be treated with dignity, and that means the landlords would have greater occupancy. But the mission changed because if you hire a property management firm that doesn’t understand construction and tenants, you don’t keep the buildings as full.””
Smies expects property management division to grow as NAI opens new West Michigan markets, and that could mean more jobs.
“Our philosophy is that we see ourselves as stewards, so as we manage people’s assets, doing it with integrity is at the heart of our mission.”
Source: Dave Smies, NAI West Michigan Property Management
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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