Inherited Commercial Property! What do I do? Do I hire a manager?

[Kevin Wheeler]

I'm wondering what to do with some commercial real estate that I have co-inherited from my dad. It's been neglected and mis-managed to be honest. None of us are real estate professionals (my dad is a doctor). We have three multi-tenant retail/service shopping centers worth about $14 million with about 150,000 sf building area and 35 suites (some of which are vacant), and then three single tenant buildings that are leased up that are a passive investment and don't take any work. I'm wanting a mostly hands off role in these shopping centers. I need to get a broker first of all, but I'm possibly wanting to get a property manager. I don't know if they would have enough to do to really keep themselves busy, or if there would really just be a lot of work until we get everything caught up, and then there wouldn't be much left to do. We already have an accountant that handles the billing and whatnot. Would you hire a full time property manager? Would you try to find them locally? Or would you use an established local property management company? I worry that an established company would have so many clients, that we would hardly be their priority. They would also probably just handle day to day stuff instead of really doing everything that goes into managing this business. I really am not very experienced or even that high functioning of a person to be in charge of all of this. We do have a class A multifamily apartment complex and I might could have our general manager take on some of the Shopping Center duties. She kicks *** and could handle some extra load too, but I don't know. Is there any rule of thumb as to how many suites/buildings normally correspond to one full time commercial property manager? Any advice appreciated!!!!

[Aaron K.]

At least short term I'd go with a PM company, you don't know what you need yet, and as you learn more about what you need from a manager you can shift accordingly.