The Silent 8 % Leak: Exposing Hidden Vendor Costs in Property Ops
Where Vendor Spend Goes to Hide
Janitorial turned bi-weekly without notice, landscaping fees sneaked in a fuel surcharge, and HVAC contracts auto-renewed at 6 % above CPI. Individually small, collectively these leaks average 8–12 % of controllable OPEX across the portfolios we audit.
Warning signs:
- No master vendor database—just PDFs in email.
- Invoices approved by site staff without price-table cross-check.
- Contracts lack explicit escalation caps or benchmarking clauses.
A Cost-Recovery Sprint
- Normalize every invoice into PropTrust’s spend graph—duplicate SKUs and rate hikes light up instantly.
- Benchmark against regional pricing curves for 23 common services.
- Renegotiate or replace: Auto-generate RFPs and track savings right in the dashboard.
The average user recovered $540 per unit in year one—money that flows straight to NOI and drives cap-rate value faster than any rent increase.