What starts the engines in your mind? Is it reading a good book, solving a problem, or participating in a great conversation?
For Stacy Strain Wilson, it’s lease abstraction. “My brain lights up when I do lease abstracting,” said Strain.
For nearly 20 years, Wilson has been the President of Office4Hire, a company that specializes in lease administration services. She provides local and nationwide administrative services to a short list of businesses.
One of Wilson's biggest customers is a privately owned furniture company with 600+ leases. The company owns two very well-known furniture brands.
What does she do with those 600+ leases and their lease data? She’s abstracting, sometimes for hours at a time. “Rather than doing a little for a lot,” she said about her short customer list, “I do a lot for a little.”
Abstracting is Wilson’s passion, and she relies on one lease administration software to do it and do it well – CoStar Real Estate Manager. CoStar is the best lease administration solution for a few reasons:
Tracking leases is not for the faint of heart, especially when there's hundreds or even thousands of them. That includes any lease provisions unique to individual leases, financial obligations or other issues. You cannot manage critical dates manually using a calendar and a positive outlook.
You need software solutions that can keep up with your lease portfolio that have features like automatic reminders for renewals, kickouts and terminations.
Lease administration requires accuracy and efficiency in generating reports. With all lease data abstracted and centralized, CoStar Real Estate Manager provides powerful reporting and analytics tools.
Lease abstraction users can trust the quality of the 18 system reports used to audit all abstracted data to legal documents and verify that all instructions were followed.
All lease administration users can generate detailed reports on lease expirations, financial obligations and tenant performance. These insights are invaluable for strategic planning and portfolio optimization.
As organizations centralized lease data for ASC 842, lease abstraction became even more important. A good lease abstraction process provides a summation of key financial, business and legal information. This includes any lease provisions unique to that lease, financial obligations or other issues.
Lease agreements are dense documents weighed down by legalese and jargon. No standardized structure exists for a lease agreement. This makes it difficult to find relevant information at a glance. Lease abstracts are particularly useful for administrators and lease accountants who need to access critical information during their day-to-day.
“The help desk is fantastic [at CoStar],” said Wilson. She recalled specific instances with Implementation Consultant LaToyia Holley, who helped solve a recent problem.
“She cared...you can’t teach care. She had our six without a doubt.”
In addition to the client services and implementation teams, CoStar has in-house lease abstractors who can help companies dissect their leases for every critical detail.
“I love CoStar,” Strain concluded.
If you’re a lease abstractor, CoStar is the right choice for your portfolio management.