Austin Commercial Property Management

Austin commercial property management we couldn’t find a website for

19 Austin commercial property management businesses we could find no website for — each one invisible to everyone searching online right now. Listed as opportunity, never scored. Is one of these yours? Get online →

• Citizen House MLK Leasing Office +1-512-886-6861
• Eastridge Apartments Leasing Office Del Valle +1-833-934-3026
• The Oaks at Ben White Apartments Austin
• Amli Branch Park North Leasing Office Austin
• Eryngo Hills Austin
• Creekstone Austin
• Clubhouse & Leasing Center Austin
• The Vineyard Apartments Leasing Office Pflugerville +1-888-666-6208
• Altair Tech Ridge Austin
• Bridge at Davenport Place Austin
• High Point Preserve Austin
• Terrace at Walnut Creek Austin
• Creekview Apartment Homes Austin
• Pro Desk at The Home Depot
• Prose Manor Manor
• Settlers Landing Leasing Office Round Rock +1-512-244-0014
• Estraya at Falcon Pointe Leasing Office
• Clubhouse
• Stone Hill Apartments Pflugerville

Commercial Property Management guides

Concepts

Property management agreement

The contract between owner and manager. It sets the fee, the term and termination rights, the scope of authority (what the manager can spend without owner approval), reporting obligations, indemnification and insurance. Everything the manager can and cannot do traces back to this document.

Management fee

Usually a percentage of gross receipts collected — commonly 2–4% for commercial assets, lower on large single-tenant or industrial portfolios, with a stated monthly minimum. Because it is tied to collections, not billings, the manager only earns on money actually received.

Leasing commission

A separate fee paid for procuring a lease, typically a percentage of total lease value or a per-square-foot amount, split between listing and tenant representatives. It is transaction revenue, distinct from the recurring management fee — an owner may hire one firm to manage and another to lease.

Construction management fee

A fee, often 3–5% of hard costs, for administering a tenant improvement or capital project as the owner's representative — bidding, contractor oversight, change order review, draw approvals and closeout. It is charged whether or not the manager holds the construction contract.

Operating budget

The annual forecast of income and expense for a building, built line by line from contracts, utility history, payroll and planned repairs, then approved by the owner. It becomes the basis for CAM estimates billed to tenants and the yardstick every monthly variance report is written against.

CAM (common area maintenance)

The pool of shared operating costs — janitorial, landscaping, security, utilities for common areas, management fee, repairs — allocated to tenants by pro rata share. In office it is often folded into 'operating expenses'; in retail CAM is usually a distinct, separately negotiated charge.

CAM reconciliation

The year-end true-up comparing what tenants were billed monthly in estimates against actual expenses, producing a bill or credit per tenant. It is the single most audited and most disputed calculation in commercial property management, and it must tie to the general ledger line for line.

Escalations

Contractual increases in rent or expense reimbursement over the lease term — fixed annual bumps (say 3%), CPI-indexed increases, or pass-through of expense growth above a base. Missing an escalation date is one of the most common and most expensive lease-administration errors.

Base year and expense stop

Two ways a full-service lease shares expense growth. A base year fixes the first year's actual operating expenses; the tenant pays its share of everything above that. An expense stop fixes a dollar-per-square-foot amount instead. Both mean the landlord absorbs costs up to the stated level and the tenant pays the growth.

Gross-up provision

A lease clause allowing variable expenses to be restated as if the building were 95–100% occupied. Without it, a tenant whose base year fell in a low-occupancy year would enjoy an artificially low base and never pay its fair share as the building fills. It protects the landlord and is standard in well-drafted office leases.

Controllable vs non-controllable expenses

Tenants increasingly cap annual growth on expenses the manager can influence — janitorial, landscaping, management fee — while leaving taxes, insurance and utilities uncapped. The distinction determines which line items a cap applies to and is negotiated lease by lease.

Admin fee cap

A negotiated ceiling on the administrative or management fee charged into CAM, often expressed as a percentage of other operating expenses (commonly 10–15%) or excluded from the base entirely. Sophisticated tenants also exclude the management fee from the base used to calculate the admin fee, to prevent stacking.

Tenant chargeback

A cost billed directly to one tenant rather than into CAM — after-hours HVAC, excess electrical consumption, supplemental cooling, damage repairs, above-standard cleaning. Chargebacks require a documented rate and a clear lease basis or they become collection disputes.

Estoppel certificate

A signed tenant statement confirming lease terms, rent, deposit, commencement and expiration dates and that no landlord defaults exist. Buyers and lenders require them before closing, and collecting them across a rent roll on a deadline is a recurring property management fire drill.

SNDA (subordination, non-disturbance and attornment)

A three-party agreement in which the tenant subordinates its lease to the lender's mortgage, the lender agrees not to disturb the tenant's possession on foreclosure, and the tenant agrees to attorn to a successor landlord. It is the tenant's protection against being wiped out if the owner defaults.

Rent roll

The master schedule of every tenant, suite, square footage, lease dates, base rent, escalations, reimbursement method, deposits and options. It is the source of truth for valuation, lending and reporting — a rent roll that does not tie to the general ledger is the first thing a buyer's due diligence finds.

Tenant improvement management

Delivering the build-out a lease promised: pricing the scope against the allowance, managing the design and permit path, selecting and supervising the contractor, tracking change orders against contingency, and hitting a delivery date that triggers rent commencement.

Punch list and certificate of occupancy

The punch list is the itemized set of incomplete or defective items identified at substantial completion, tracked to closure before final payment. The certificate of occupancy is the jurisdiction's sign-off that the space may be legally occupied — without it, the tenant cannot move in and rent commencement is at risk.

Preventive maintenance program

Scheduled, condition-independent servicing of building equipment on manufacturer- or standard-based intervals — filter changes, belt inspections, coil cleaning, water treatment, generator load tests. A real PM program starts from a complete equipment inventory; without that inventory, the schedule is a guess.

Work order and SLA

The ticket that records a request, its priority, assignment, parts, labor and closeout, governed by a service level agreement defining how fast each priority class must be handled. The work order history is also the evidence base for capital planning — repeat calls on one unit are a replacement argument.

Response vs resolution time

Response time is how long until someone acknowledges and arrives; resolution time is how long until the problem is actually fixed. Contracts that measure only response produce fast acknowledgments and slow repairs, and tenants judge the manager on resolution.

Deferred maintenance

Work that was needed and not done — the accumulated backlog of roof, HVAC, envelope, paving and life-safety repairs. It converts an operating problem into a capital problem, shows up as a price reduction in due diligence, and is the defining condition of distressed assets under new ownership.

Capital plan and reserve study

A multi-year forecast of major replacements — roof, chillers, elevators, parking, envelope — with remaining useful life and estimated cost by year. A reserve study is the formal version, funding those replacements from reserves so a roof failure in year seven is a budgeted event rather than a capital call.

RFP and vendor bid

The written scope, specification and pricing format issued to competing service providers, structured so bids can be leveled apples to apples. A vague RFP produces bids that cannot be compared and a contract that becomes a change-order engine; the specification, not the price, is where the money is won or lost.

COI (certificate of insurance) tracking

Confirming every vendor and tenant carries required coverage — general liability, auto, workers' compensation, umbrella — with the owner and manager named as additional insureds, and that policies have not lapsed. An expired COI on a vendor working on site is a direct, uninsured liability transfer to the owner.

W-9, lien waiver and vendor compliance

The onboarding paperwork that makes a vendor payable and the work defensible: a W-9 for 1099 reporting, current COI, signed services agreement, background checks where required, and conditional and unconditional lien waivers exchanged with each payment so no mechanic's lien attaches to the property.

Janitorial specification

The document defining exactly what is cleaned, how often and to what standard — restroom frequency, vacuum and detail schedules, trash and recycling, high dusting, floor care cycles, staffing hours and supervision. Without a written spec, every janitorial bid is priced to a different job and the cheapest one wins by doing less.

Day porter

A daytime cleaning and light-maintenance presence stationed at the building during business hours — restroom checks, spill response, lobby and common-area upkeep, conference room resets, freight and trash support. It is the most visible line in the janitorial contract and the first cut when budgets tighten.

BAS/BMS (building automation system)

The controls network that schedules and modulates HVAC, lighting and sometimes life-safety equipment through field controllers and sensors, with a front end for operators. It sets occupied and unoccupied schedules, holds setpoints, sequences equipment and generates the alarms and trend data that make energy work possible.

Chiller plant

The central cooling equipment — chillers, primary and secondary pumps, piping and controls — producing chilled water for the building's air handlers. It is typically the single largest electrical load and the most expensive equipment to replace, so plant efficiency and staging strategy dominate both the utility bill and the capital plan.

Cooling tower

The heat-rejection equipment that dumps condenser heat to the outside air by evaporating water. It drives significant water consumption, requires chemical treatment and regular cleaning to control scale, corrosion and Legionella risk, and its approach temperature directly affects chiller efficiency.

AHU and VAV box

The air handling unit conditions and moves supply air through fans, coils and filters; variable air volume boxes are the zone-level terminal units that modulate airflow, and often reheat it, to hold each zone's temperature. Most 'too hot / too cold' tenant calls resolve at a VAV box, its damper actuator or its zone sensor.

Economizer and setpoint

An economizer uses cool outside air for free cooling when conditions allow, saving compressor energy; setpoints are the target values — supply air temperature, static pressure, chilled water temperature, zone temperature — the controls hold. Stuck economizer dampers and setpoints nobody has revisited in years are two of the most common energy leaks in commercial buildings.

Demand charge and peak shaving

Commercial electric bills charge for energy consumed (kWh) and separately for the highest rate of draw in the billing period (kW demand), and the demand charge can rival the consumption charge. Peak shaving — staggering equipment starts, pre-cooling, load shedding on a demand signal, thermal or battery storage — lowers that peak without necessarily lowering total kWh.

ENERGY STAR score

A 1–100 percentile score from EPA's Portfolio Manager comparing a building's source energy use intensity, weather-normalized and adjusted for operating characteristics, against a national peer sample. A score of 50 is median; 75 or higher qualifies eligible property types for ENERGY STAR certification, and the score is what most disclosure ordinances and ESG reports ask for.

ECAD (Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure)

Austin's local ordinance, codified in Chapter 6-7 of the Austin City Code, requiring properties served by Austin Energy inside the city limits to report energy performance. Commercial buildings 10,000 square feet and larger must report an energy rating to the City by June 1 each year, using either the key code option or EPA's Portfolio Manager.

LEED O+M recertification

The existing-buildings track of LEED, which certifies how a building is actually operated — energy and water performance, waste, purchasing, indoor environmental quality — rather than how it was designed. Certification is not permanent: buildings recertify on a recurring cycle by submitting ongoing performance data, so an O+M plaque is a claim about current operations.

ESG and Scope 1/2/3 reporting

Owners increasingly require emissions data from their managers. Scope 1 is direct on-site combustion (boilers, generators, refrigerant leakage), Scope 2 is purchased electricity, and Scope 3 includes tenant energy, waste, water and embodied emissions the landlord does not directly control. Meter-level data quality, not methodology, is usually the binding constraint.

Life safety inspection and fire alarm testing

The recurring, code-mandated testing of fire alarm devices, sprinkler systems, fire pumps, standpipes, extinguishers, emergency lighting and exit signage, on intervals set by NFPA standards and the local fire authority. Inspection reports must be retained and produced on demand — the record is as much a compliance obligation as the test.

Elevator inspection

Periodic testing and certification of elevators and escalators by a licensed inspector, with a current certificate posted in the cab or machine room. In Texas this is regulated by the Department of Licensing and Regulation, and an expired certificate can shut a bank of elevators down in a class A tower.

ADA compliance

Ongoing obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act affecting entrances, path of travel, restrooms, signage, parking, elevators and counters in places of public accommodation. Because the standard is readily achievable barrier removal, not a one-time build permit, a building that passed inspection years ago can still draw a complaint today.

Emergency action plan

The building's written procedure for fire, severe weather, medical emergency, active threat, power loss and evacuation — with floor wardens, assembly points, notification trees and tenant contacts. It only works if it is drilled and if the tenant contact list is current, which is why review is a scheduled task, not an as-needed one.

Tenant satisfaction survey

A structured survey of building occupants and decision-makers measuring satisfaction with management responsiveness, cleanliness, comfort, amenities and value, benchmarked against a peer index. Kingsley Associates is the long-standing benchmark provider in commercial real estate, and survey scores frequently feed manager scorecards and incentive fees.

Occupancy sensor and utilization data

Sensors and badge, Wi-Fi or camera-derived counts that measure how much of a space is actually used, at what times, by how many people. Hybrid work made this the number owners and corporate occupiers argue from — it drives HVAC scheduling, cleaning frequency, amenity sizing and, ultimately, how much space a tenant renews for.

Amenity programming

The managed calendar and service layer a building offers beyond space — conference and event centers, fitness and wellness, food and coffee, tenant events, concierge, outdoor space. It is an operating expense with no direct revenue line, justified through retention and renewal rather than through the reconciliation.

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