Property Management in a Pandemic Era: Strategies for Emerging Markets

The contractual obligations of a property manager to a property owner in property management include but are not limited to the selection of good tenants who can pay initial and subsequent rents for occupied property, thus ensuring that there are no voids, and also take decision on appropriate rents for different properties based on location, services provided, type of accommodation etc. The property manager is also obligated to conduct routine inspections of the properties, collect rents and render account of such to the property owner and conduct routine inspections. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the work of the property manager is expected to become more tasking though may vary from country to country and from region to region as a result of anticipated job losses, drop in income of businesses and informal workers etc. which may in turn affect the ability of some tenants to pay due rent and add to the property managers task of effective rent collection. There is also the challenge of businesses shifting to online transactions The study which is quantitative in nature adopted the survey approach in addition to desk review of relevant literatures. The study population consists of estate surveying and valuation firms in Nigeria. It was revealed that the usual method of collecting rents and carrying out routine management inspections by property managers in Nigeria will no longer be obtainable as social distancing methods are now adopted. This in turn will result to more expenses for the property manager and property owner who are already grasping under the pains of delay and non payment of rents by tenants. The study proposes that rather than allowing properties to remain void during the COVID-19 periods thereby leading to loss of income to the property owners, moratoriums should be offered to tenants and tenants should be encouraged to pay partial payments. The property manager should also communicate with the tenants regularly through affordable means that encourage social distancing.