Commercial Real Estate Agents – Get Reunited with Your Property Market and Clients
In commercial real estate brokerage it is easy to get distracted and diverted on a daily basis into things that are time consuming and not necessarily income producing. The pressures of working with property listings, clients, and inquiries will shift your priorities in many ways as an agent or broker. Be careful how you manage your time and work processes. Don’t let things divert you away from your ultimate goals.
The Danger Signs to Watch For
Diversions are ‘danger signs’ and don’t generally create listings; daily issues such as meetings, inspections, and presentations should only happen with the people that matter and those that you know are involved in local property. Qualifying the people that you work with is quite important.
The most important resource that you have is time, and on that basis your diary is really an important business tool. The only things that should go into your diary are those matters that are business related and potentially active.
Understand the things that really matter to you personally to help you grow your real estate business. Get reunited with your local property market and focus mainly on building the connections that will lead to future opportunity. Here are some specific ways to help with that so you can tap into leads and listings:
- Building and Planning Approvals – At the local building approvals office there will be new building and development applications going through the various stages of application, consideration and approval. There is also likely to be some minutes or public notification process that you can research into and watch. It takes on average about 4 to 6 months to get a standard property development approval through the planning application process; on that basis there is time to connect with the approval applicants to see if you can help them with the property marketing of the new project.
- Property Developers – Some property developers are better than others to work with. Some are proven by the number of projects that they have successfully. That being said, many property developers take time to trust and work with a particular agent. Developers require results in a timely way as property developments cost money the longer that they are vacant or unsold. If you are going to work with property developers, focus on the longer term reward process, and give the developer the marketing momentum that their project needs.
- Property Investors – Some property developers will shift and change their investments regularly and on that basis they need help with rents, prices, inspections, negotiations, and vacancies. Property performance is another category of activity that you can help them with.
- Vacancies – Whilst there are always vacancies to work with in the local area, a property with too many vacancies will be a real drag on property performance for an investor. Can you provide a specialized leasing service and a tenant mix or tenant retention program to assist?
- Redundant buildings – When a commercial property is nearing the end of its current use, there are ways to move ahead with redevelopment and re-positioning. A material change of use is quite a valuable way of returning a redundant property to the market in a different form. Understand the local zoning that applies to property in all locations and then look at the re-positioning that can occur. A property can be re-positioned if the inquiry is available in the new market segment. If you monitor new
- Specific business segments – If you are located in a town or city that has a business bias such as mining, forestry, or a specific manufacturing industry, then it is worthwhile delving into that industry segment to help business owners with property pressures. Get to know what certain property segments are doing from an occupancy perspective and why that is the case. You can be the person to find new properties and help with relocation in any business segment.
So the message here is that you can reunite with your property market by choosing particular segments and clients to work with.
