Commercial Real Estate Agents – Achieve Your Goals by Qualifying Your Prospects
In commercial real estate today, you will find plenty of listings on the market for sale or for lease. Whilst the enquiry for those listings may appear genuine at first glance, the enquiry does need to be checked and qualified before you spend the time with the parties concerned.
What does qualification involve? Here are some ideas and questions that you could use with the people that come to you from your marketing efforts and talk to you about purchasing or leasing commercial investment property:
- Are they looking to lease or buy property? Hopefully you will have both types of listings to work with and quote.
- Understanding the price range that you are working with will help greatly with finding the right listings and matching the enquiry. Ensure that the party can ‘afford’ the properties that they think they require. It is common to see that tenants and buyers have little understanding of the prevailing market rents and prices that are being asked. Get to the facts.
- Location will be a priority for some tenants and buyers. If they have a particular location in mind, ask them about their choices and priorities. Many businesses as occupants of property need to be near transport, ports, airports, and highways. A lot depends on just where their customers come from and how that occurs. Check out these facts and set priorities for the tenant or buyer. Certain things will be more important than others.
- Size of the property required can be both internal and external to the premises and improvements and will set priorities on the enquiry. The prospect will have required space for office use, staffing, and business operations. It is common to get the prospects architects involved in property choice and tenancy or fit out design.
- If you are taking an enquiry from a property investor, the priorities that they set will be based on cash flow, tenant mix, and property holding. The tenant mix cash flow for the property will have a lot to do with the choice of the right property.
- Many businesses have departments or divisions that should interact across the chosen property. That interaction will have factors of property design to consider. Find out what they need and how their business operates. Do they need to be on one level or can they look at a property that is across multi-levels and perhaps even across multi-buildings.
- Communications systems today can be unique to the prospect and the enquiry. They may need access to particular communications systems and links through the local telephone exchange.
- Power requirements can be special in many different ways. What power do they need? Do they require industrial grade ‘three phase’ power, and if so why? Is that level of power currently available? How can they get it at the property?
- The permitted use of the premises will need to comply with the zoning of the property and its current configuration. You should have some plans of the local development plan to help you here.
- Expansion needs should be questioned. Will they require more space in the property and if so when? Will the property have that allowance for expansion and how could it be done within the zoning?
- Deliveries to the property may dictate the configuration and access requirements. Loading zones and turnaround points are a big issue with industrial property choices today.
- Improvements in a property, together with available services and amenities will have relevance to the tenant or buyer. Find out what they need.
- Car parking, highways, and public transport may influence the prospect to look at certain listings and particular locations. The staffing and operations of their business will have an impact on these factors.
- Other agents may have shown the prospect some properties locally already. Ensure that you have that information before you spend too much time on certain properties. That is why exclusive listings are better for you and your market share. Other agents will not have that stock.
So there are many ways to qualify a tenant or buyer of a quality commercial or retail property. You can add to this list based on your location and property market.
