The purpose of this study is to analyze the current status and practices of building management, and to find out through a survey with the people in building and property businesses how they recognize the necessity of property management, in order to ...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the current status and practices of building management, and to find out through a survey with the people in building and property businesses how they recognize the necessity of property management, in order to find a new way of specializing the property management for office buildings.
In order to achieve the purpose of this study, we first examined the earlier studies and literatures related to building management. Second, we examined the statistics from the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (2007) and the statistical data of rental charge for office and commercial buildings, and the rate of return on investment (2008), as well as the current status of 265 property management companies. We also examined the domestic and overseas literatures on property management systems. Third, we analyzed the result of the survey we carried out with 322 people in the building management and property businesses located in Seoul and smaller cities (Yongin, Ansan, Cheonan).
The data collected was analyzed using SPSS 16.0 Window program. We computed the frequency and percentage of the demographic background of those surveyed, and conducted a cross-tabulation analysis and calculated the chi-square test value to examine the current status of the building management and how they recognize the necessity of specializing the property management for buildings.
The finding of our study is summarized as follows: First, the number of office buildings has been rapidly increasing, particularly in the smaller cities since 1990. Second, the property management market for buildings shows a steady growth since the financial crisis in late 1990’s. However, the majority of these asset management companies remain small, providing mostly FM services, i.e. cleaning, guarding, landscaping, etc. Third, most building managers find it necessary to gain profession knowledge and receive re-education on property management on a continual basis. Forth, they generally agree that the current license system for property management is not as efficient as it is supposed to be, and therefore it would be necessary to develop a new certification system.
Based on the results of the survey, we suggest the following methods to specialize the property management for buildings. First, it is necessary to redefine the concept of property management of building. If the concept of property management of building is defined based on the theory of property management of real estate, the content of building management and the purpose of such activities, it is an overall and comprehensive concept that includes not only FM(Facility Management) but also OM(Operation Management) and AM(Asset Management).
Second, it is necessary to introduce a government certification system for 'property management of building' and to put the existing institutes of training experts for property management of real estate under the government system. If the government certification system is effectuated, it would create enterprises that building owners can assign the management of their assets with confidence and the activities of such enterprises can develop the asset value of buildings into sound social capital. Furthermore, they can protect the consumers such as building lessee and tenant by implementing proper management and maintenance plan.
Among the qualification system currently available for office building managers are CPM (Certified Property Manger) designated by IREM, and building manager certificate issued by the Korea Industrial Education Foundation Institute. However, these licenses are not officially certified by the government, and therefore are not considered as a reliable verification that the license holder has the right qualification to do the business.
Therefore, it would be necessary to keep such private institutes as IREM and Korea Industrial Education Foundation Institute under the public system and control to allow them to play a more active role as public training centers for this particular business area. Then we will be able to bring up more qualified professionals and specialist and enhance the reliability and credibility of the building management industry and promote professionalism in the industry.
Third, it is necessary to introduce a registration system for building-property management companies and to make it imperative for any building more than certain scale to assign building management to a specialist of property management of building so that this can vitalize the building-property management market. From a political and economical point of view, the government's intervention in developing building management business has justifiability of policy as a matter of protecting the consumers such as building lessee and tenant and developing building-property management business.
Therefore, it is necessary to make the building management professionalized through introducing the registration system for property management companies that can integrate the complex and various functions in specific fields necessary for building management work and manage buildings in comprehensive and professional manner. It is also necessary to make it imperative for any building with more than 5 floors or 3,000㎡ of building area to assign the management to building management specialist. And it is necessary to make a legal ground for the responsibility and the obligation of building-property management such as manager's investigating the management status quarterly and reporting the result to administrative institution.
This study has significance in that first, it shows the current status and general perception of the building management in Korea, and second, it provides basic data to introduce certification system for the building property management. However, the findings of this study may not be generalized as the samples were limited to S