Answering Your Questions About Ways of Finding Commercial Real Estate Leasing Landlords and Tenants

In most towns and cities today, there are factors of change and opportunity in the commercial office leasing market.  This is especially true as businesses approach seasonal business peaks, such as those seen at the end of the trading season or the start of a new fiscal year.

Know the business cycles and seasons that apply in your town or city, and use those cycles as you move on leasing needs and talk to tenants and landlords.  Ask questions as the property cycles change.  Note the information and the leads that come your way. 

You will find plenty of tenants locally that will need property leasing help over time.  Know what is happening with supply and demand in property segments. 

Look for expansion and contraction pressures for local businesses; look for those businesses that are coming to lease end.

Market Changes are Seasonal

In the two or three months leading up to a seasonal trading shift, annual public holidays, or end of a financial year, many businesses are considering their options when it comes to occupancy locations and occupancy costs over the next 12 months. 

Understand the different business segments locally and look for the best businesses showing signs of change or pressure in occupancy.

Local Area Awareness

Look for industry changes, businesses needing more space, less space, and a general overall lift in property improvements.  The impact of ‘online sales’ and the internet today is changing the way businesses think about occupied space, staff placement, remote office locations, and occupation costs.

It is a fact today that many businesses can operate remotely quite successfully.  The internet and the communication tools at our disposal today, allows many sales teams to remain ‘mobile’ for most of the working week.

Why pay for office space or desk space when your sales team and or business support team can be operationally efficient in remote and regional locations?  So, you can be the ‘facilitator’ of allowing local businesses to adjust their workspace, efficiencies, and operational costs, through a business relocation.  Think about how you can do that.

Focus Your Commercial Brokerage Skills

In commercial real estate brokerage today, you have the options available in working as a sellers agent, a buyer’s agent, a tenant advocate, and or a leasing specialist.  Choose the market segments that offer the best levels of opportunity.  In one word, ‘specialise’ in all that you do, think, say, prospect, and concentrate on.  Look for the factors of change and prospect or your services accordingly.   Leasing activity allows you to work with investors and landlords.  You can be the ‘pressure relief’ that people are looking for in filling vacancies and resolving rental growth.

What is Happening in Leasing?

So, you have some things to look into in your local leasing market.  Understand what’s happening in your property market and identify the following factors:

• Some leases will be coming to an end, rent reviews may exist, or lease options may require resolve.
• Some businesses will need to expand or relocate as a result of business pressure.
• Some businesses in owner occupation will like to undertake a sale and leaseback strategy to release capital into their business model.
• Aggressive rentals and unrealistic landlords put pressure on tenants and businesses to relocate.
• Unrealistically high occupancy costs can shift the balance of future and potential occupancy for a tenant in any building. Look for the buildings and the tenants that are under pressure of redundancy and higher expenses in outgoings.
• Shifts and changes in local property zoning can be the catalyst for change when it comes to tenant movement and business relocation.
• Land shortages can put significant pressures on new property developments and the achieved prices and rentals in a town and city. Look at the land zonings locally to see where the next parcels of vacant land are currently available for new property developments.
• Older properties can be prime opportunities for renovation and redevelopment to a higher and better use. From a single older property, new property developments evolve; some of those developments can be project related and extend across a number of units and construction phases.
• Road closures and transport changes can be reasons for businesses to relocate. Understand the pressures of transport and access from a business perspective in your town or city.  Understand how local businesses use and access the local transport facilities, and the main freeways and highways.
• Communications Systems today are continually evolving and shifting so that businesses can tap into the global online business opportunities presented in many market segments.
• The services and amenities in some older properties are closer to redundancy. Identify the older buildings where tenants are lacking the modern conveniences and amenities normally expected of a tenant in occupancy.  When a tenant pays a reasonable rent, they demand a level of service and function from the building that they occupy.  You can tap into those of disgruntled tenants seeking better value for rentals paid and outgoings charged.

So there are plenty of things that you can do here when it comes to identifying commercial real estate leasing opportunities.  It really doesn’t matter whether you work for tenants or landlords in office leasing.  The special services you can provide for both market segments are quite substantial and specific.

Solve Problems for Your Clients

Choose the segment that works for you, seek a legally correct formal engagement or agency appointment, and then negotiate a fair and reasonable commission to solve any problems the client landlord or tenant may have.  It is very hard for a client to overlook the skills and services of a top agent.