Real estate is required by all organisations to carry out their operations/trade; the cost of building space is second to staff costs and directly impacts operational costs and financial performance. Residential real estate on the other hand, represents the single largest investment for individuals.
Real estate management & maintenance plays a strategic role in preserving and enhancing real estate values. It ensures that buildings function efficiently and provide a healthy, safe and comfortable environment for occupants. Effective building maintenance and operations reduces energy consumption, extends building life and supports environmental sustainability.
The socio-technological-commercial demands of real estate stakeholders result in a wide spectrum of work and necessitates a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional approach to service delivery.
Overview of Real Estate Management & Maintenance Services
The quality of buildings and comfort and ambience in workplaces, health and tourist facilities and in homes reflects Singapore’s world-class city status. The costs of managing and maintaining buildings to sustain this global position is rising due to advancing technologies in new buildings, ageing of existing buildings and higher occupant expectations and demands. Clients are resorting to outsourcing to save costs, often without sufficient objective performance measures in place.
In Singapore, the real estate management & maintenance service industry has been slow in responding to market changes and demands. Management systems have hardly changed; attributes of the workforce testify to a mismatch between required and prevailing skills and knowledge. The industry remains highly fragmented and is inadequately organised to deliver the required proactive services.
Competition has driven prices to untenable levels, impacting occupant and client satisfaction. Given the labour intensive nature of the work, workforce quality will be crucial for levering on to gain a competitive edge and service.
A well-trained workforce equipped with multi-disciplinary and multi-tasking skills will collectively elevate service standards, provide value-add and stabilise cost increases. The multivariate nature of real estate management & maintenance demand requires an interdisciplinary and cross-sector approach to meet them; research and training must provide an integrative environment to achieve this.
