Commercial Real Estate Brokerage – Be the Matchmaker for Property Deals
Many property deals can be found, nurtured, and shaped ‘off market’. You simply have to master the art of ‘matchmaking’; which is the process of finding the right people and the right properties. That then becomes a ‘matchmaking service’ in commercial real estate brokerage.
When you master that process comprehensively, you can then be the catalyst in creating a quality sale or lease transaction that others know nothing about. Top agents do that all the time. Are you ready for some new business focus ‘off market’?
Start with some of these questions:
- Who do you know? Can you say that you know those prospects and clients deeply?
- Why will those people listen to you about property?
- Do they know you as the ‘expert’ and would they trust you to help them with their property problems?
- What are their requirements relating to property?
- What are the common pressures and changes regards property in your city?
These questions can put you closer to what really matters when it comes to winning new business with your clients and prospects. The questions can put you on to the changes of property activity locally.
Why Do This?
The best agents get in front of the business. They look for the things that will ‘be happening’ and not the things that ‘have happened’.
Put yourself into the property picture and grow your relevance as an agent or broker in your location. Market yourself based on your skills, knowledge, and database interaction.
Canvass the Local Area.
Get to know the right people. Here are some special strategies to make this work:
- Investors – Some investors are more successful than others. You will need to do a regional assessment. What are the investors looking for when it comes to local property?
- Property types – You can pull in more property enquiry when you have the right listings and when those listings are exclusively controlled. Find real reasons why a client or property owner should list their property with you and your brokerage. Don’t come up with some ‘bland’ statement like ‘I work harder for my clients’. To be ‘special’ as an agent, and for people to regard you as such, your marketing, negotiation skills, and client contact processes have to be superior. That takes deliberate effort and practice.
- Business owners – Do a regional assessment of all local businesses as to what they own, and what they occupy. Look for pressures of expansion and contraction.
- Vacant properties – A vacant property is an opportunity in waiting; the same can be said for vacant land in the right location. The right property market and the right zoning or development approvals will help take that property to the next phase of opportunity.
- Redundancy and renovation – An older property or one that has reached the end of its economic life, will very likely be suited to a renovation, rezoning, or redevelopment. It just takes the right people with foresight and money to make that happen.
- Tenants – The occupants in buildings move around for many different reasons. You can track the lease expiry dates and stay in contact with tenants for that very reason.
- Buyers – Focus on buyer segments. Work with investors, franchise groups, owner occupiers, and developers. What are they looking for and when will they need it? Why will they remember you when it comes to the next property decision?
- Precinct priorities – Comprehensively cover the local property precincts when it comes to all occupants and owners. Define an area of about 2,500 properties to make that work. Street by street and property by property, work through the zone getting to know exactly who owns what and why that is the case. Ask plenty of questions with the people that you connect with, but do so in a professional way.
The ‘matchmaking’ process in commercial real estate is quite special. To make it happen, you should use all of the above leverage points effectively and directly.
