Commercial Property Today – Tenants Give Agents Key Market Intelligence

When you are working in commercial sales or leasing, the tenants in buildings and in properties locally can give you so much information.  It’s a fact that tenants know the area better than you; they have worked it for some time and can understand intimately what is going on with other property owners and businesses nearby.  With the right questions you can open up some real tips and ideas to tap into.  Starting the right conversation is the key to the process.  Here are some tips from our recent newsletter.

These are the things that I would be looking for using this process of tenant contact:

• Who owns the property next door?  They are the landlords or investors that you can track down.
• Do they have a lease and when does it expire?  Would they like you to contact them towards that date to help them with market information?
• Do they know much about the local property market and can you help them with some prices and rent information? • Who runs the business next door?  They are the tenants that you can talk to for future leasing opportunity.
• Have other businesses been in the street for a very long time?  They could be the next ones to move or expand.
• Have any nearby businesses indicated change in any way?  They are opportunities to be tapped.
• Are any local businesses showing pressure or problems of occupancy?

As to how you ask these questions is up to you, but asking is the key. To really get a grip on the local business community for leasing opportunities, so much good work can occur on the telephone from the comfort of your office.

Good leasing agents will spend about 2 or 3 hours on the telephone each day as part of the process. To build better market share as the local commercial real estate specialist agent, here is a contact process and model that you can adopt.

1. Research your area on a street by street basis.  Visit all the businesses to leave a card and see if the boss will talk to you.  As a bare minimum you should be able to get the name of the business proprietor for a later call.
2. Document all information that you get into a database so you can follow up on matters.
3. Spend at least 50% of your day out of the office in your territory talking to people.
4. Look for properties and businesses that are under pressures of change.
5. Contact property owners that purchased about 3 years ago and beyond as they will be the next ones to look for more property or change property.

Commercial real estate is a great business.  It just takes dedication and focus for results to be achieved.  So many agents struggle with that discipline.  The small percentage of agents that handle it well soon rise to the top of the local market and do the larger share of the deals.  We have got lots more tips in our newsletter if you find this of use in your property market.

You can also get lots of free articles and information at our website http://www.commercial-realestate-training.com/