There are at least two good reasons for the employment of a manager by an owner of real estate. First, the owner is relieved of the labor and detail involved in the collections of rents, the physical care of the property and the keeping of accounts. Secondly, a good manager is usually able to make more advantageous leases, will lose less rents through vacancies, and have lower expenses than would an owner managing his own property. There may be exceptions to this in the case of owners having both time and real estate experiences, but reference is here made to the usual owner to whom real estate is a side-issue or investment.

The work of a management organization consists of five things -

First: Marketing space, that is securing the tenants for the building at the best rates obtainable.

Second: The collection of the rents.

Third: Purchases of supplies and equipment and expenditures for repairs.

Fourth: Physical care of the premises, attendance to complaints, and hiring of employees.

Fifth: Keeping proper accounts.

There are several classes of urban realty which engage the attention of expert managers.

They include: (a) Apartment houses; (b) Loft buildings; (c) Office buildings; (d) Stores; (e) Dwellings.

The property of each of the foregoing classes has its own peculiar problems. The methods used for renting space and retaining tenants in an apartment house differ from those applying to loft and office buildings but the underlying principles are the same as with selling goods, rentable space must be offered to the right market, the prospective customer must be reached. When secured, he must be retained, his surroundings must be suitable to him, he must be kept satisfied and last but not least he must pay his rent.

The Bulletin of Spear and Company may again be quoted: -

"Good Management is our vital concern. Our endeavor is first to create a desire for Good Management in the Owner, and then to devote all our effort and all our energy to attain that end.

"Good Management approaches and solves, from the material and practical side, the manifold problems with which the owner is constantly confronted, and obtains full value for his expenditures while keeping the ultimate cost of his building within the limits of normal appropriation."