There are significant differences between commercial property and residential property. One of the biggest differences will be the types of people that you will be or are working with. You will find that the people transacting commercial real estate today are largely from the business sectors or the investment community locally. They have different motivators and decision facilities.
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So what is the message?
The emphasis here is local. Get to know your local property market and the people that occupy or transact property within it. There will be plenty of people in your town or city to connect with over time ‘commercially’ if you have a good look into the businesses and the investors locally. You can build long-term relationships in the right way, hence providing the right services.
What are your services and how do you sell into them?
You may provide investment sales services, leasing services, or property management solutions. That being said there are some very special services that you can implement within each of the three disciplines mentioned. Here are some ideas to help across property management and also leasing.
Example of property management services
Take for example commercial property management as a business process and professional service. Here are some very specialized sub-activities within the asset and property management business:
- income analysis and optimization
- expenditure controls and budgeting
- maintenance planning and routines for asset performance
- tenancy mix planning and optimization
- lease controls and administration
- arrears minimization
- vacancy marketing and property leasing
- tenant selection and placement
- the performance of an investment property within a larger portfolio
- make good controls and lease compliance at lease end
So there are a number of things that you can do here when it comes to professional property management services. Given the types of buildings that you work with, there are some unique and valuable skills that can be applied across the disciplines mentioned.
Look at how you can provide some very special sub-set skills to the top clients and the active clients in your location. Always choose your best clients and properties with a bias towards quality and size. In that way any listing activity or property challenge will have a reasonable chance of fast resolve and marketing momentum.
What about leasing services?
So let’s look at leasing services as well. If you are recognized as a leasing expert for a location, then you should have a number of specific solutions to locate and provide tenants to any vacancy problems that local landlords will be experiencing.
The place to start here is with your database. The size of your database in commercial real estate leasing will be indirect co-relation to the opportunities that you can create from the property leasing market. You simply have to know a lot of tenants within business segments and property precincts. That will then give you the ‘edge’ when it comes to working with landlords and vacancy challenges.
As a specialist in local property leasing, you should be able to provide a variety of services similar to the following:
- an opinion of market rental relative to the location
- tenant advocacy services for larger businesses
- a selection of ideas to market any vacant property at any time
- a clearer understanding of how property incentives should be shaped for the particular vacancy
- marketing solutions to connect the vacant property to the right target audience
- a solid awareness of leasing documentation that applies to commercial real estate leasing today
- some real strategies behind rental establishment an escalation over time
- ways to improve the property investment and the net income from a base of leasing activity
So there are some good things that you can do here as a specialist in commercial real estate leasing. Understand what is happening in your local market today when it comes to vacancies, tenant activity, and landlord pressures. Take action with the market evidence you are seeing.
Match your professional skills into the momentum of the market and the trends of the time. You can choose to work with landlords, tenants, or business owners. Note that you can also work for property developers at the right time if the prevailing market conditions are right.
The take home message?
So the message here is that you should make the right choices when it comes to your property market and the specialist services that you provide. Look deeply into the needs of your clients as they address their property challenges. Look at the ways that you can provide specialist high-end real estate services to the right people in the right way.
Get to know your clients at each and every opportunity. Be prepared to take a property solution or option to your clients before they even know that they have a potential need or issue on the horizon. Be pro-active as a property specialist; that’s what top agents do.
