Tips for Conditioning Your Client on the Commercial Real Estate Leasing Market

When it comes to leasing commercial property today make sure that you understand the current market conditions, and that you convey those market conditions to your local clients, landlords, and the tenants that you serve.  Our industry is not an experiment; it is a very specific process and it is established on set investment, marketing and negotiation principles.

Help the Client Understand the Facts About Leasing

Any misunderstandings or missing information when working with tenants and landlords from a leasing perspective should be realigned to current day market conditions with clear market evidence and relevant supporting material.

Your job is to have that ‘comparable’ material available and handy solve any negotiation, listing, or leasing challenge.  Condition the people that you work with in the correct and the most professional way; use market evidence.

Your Message on Leasing?

The concept here is that you are the best person to ‘recondition’ your property market and the people that you work with; you understand the realities of the property market far better than they do.  Help your clients and prospects realize that the real market conditions are here to stay and brief them on those conditions.  Explain the prevailing market conditions comprehensively.

Gather the facts and then help the landlords and tenants that you work understand the prevailing market conditions across:

• Rental activity – track and measure the levels of rental activity across all recent leasing transactions. Compare the differences between net and gross rentals in each case.  Understand how they relate to the location and the property type.  Provide the rental details to those that do not fully understand what is happening locally with property segments.
• Market rentals – real market rentals are determined as a result of negotiation between willing and committed tenants and landlords. Some of those rentals will be impacted by local vacancy factors, the available competing properties, and the asking rentals applicable to each property and landlord.
• Competing listings – where appropriate take your clients to see competing properties in the location. The visual approach will help them understand the influencing factors that impact levels of enquiry and offers.
• Property improvements – with older properties there will be issues with the standards of property improvements. Do assessment of improvements, services, and amenities when it comes to every leasing vacancy.
• Industry enquiry – understand where the levels of enquiry coming from today when it applies to particular locations and property types. If you are marketing effectively in an ongoing way then the enquiries coming to you should show trends and opportunities.  Every inbound call generated by a quality listing should help you understand what tenants are looking for today.  You can chart those requirements and provide recommendations to the landlords that you work with.
• Methods of marketing – certain methods of marketing in commercial real estate will be more successful than others. A lot depends on the target market that you are chasing however choose the right marketing solutions to suit the situation, the current market conditions, and the target audience.  The Marketing Solutions that you adopt will be somewhat subject to the amount of available funds and the prevailing market conditions.  +
• Inspection processes – some properties require specific inspection strategies allowing for the improvements, the property layout, the strengths and weaknesses of the listing itself, and the landlord. As part of every exclusive property listing process, establish the inspection processes that will feature the property correctly and directly at all times.  In a complex property, establish the track or route that you will take across floors and through common areas.

So, all of this is informational and helpful when you are working with property investors, business owners, landlords and tenants today.  Are you prepared to provide and explain all the elements of the property market to those people? Have you got all of the information to help ‘close’ on a leasing transaction?

Recondition the clients thinking and perceptions in leasing properties and premises locally.  You are the specialist to do that.

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