Real estate managers as well as professional bodies tend to measure performance from an operational efficiency and sustainability perspective. The benchmarking of real estate maintenance management is essential for the support of the sustainable operation of buildings. Facility Management benchmarking is the search for the best industry practices that lead to superior performance. It can be concluded that the method presented in this paper is applicable for benchmarking. It offers an opportunity for improving the organisation on a continuous basis and considers all better practices. The results of the research clearly support the case for undertaking a similar survey among other types of organisations to ascertain whether the best practice criteria are similar to those of tertiary educational institutions and whether the model can be used for other types of organisations as well. It would be interesting to carry out the same study regionally in order to find out possible culture-related differences. There is a need for further research in which descriptions of different types of relationships in the real estate industry and metrics for managing these types can be provided.