Commercial Real Estate Brokerage – How to Give Your Clients Sound Advice
The commercial property market is always changing and that can be an opportunity for those of us that watch and act on the right indicators. You can market yourself and your ideas around the changes in the property market. Show your clients that you have your ‘finger on the pulse’ of the market and the property type.
(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)
The recommendations that you make to a client today about their property can and will also change as the year progresses. Look for the indicators and the shifts in your local property market. Look at prices, rents, supply, demand, and time on market. Make sure that you are giving your client sound advice based on real market trends and activities.
Investment Property Ideas
Take for example an investment property that is for sale or lease. You can give plenty of advice on particular things that are of value to the client’s situation. Look at these as examples in point:
- What local inquiry is doing – If you are tracking the enquiries coming in for all your listings, the enquiry profiles and volumes that you are seeing are indicators of interest to the client. Don’t just tell the client what you are seeing; have graphs and numbers to support your observations.
- What tenants and or buyers are looking for – When you ask questions of the property buyers and tenants in the location, you will get a good feel for what they are wanting in property choices. Perhaps they are driven by price or rent, or perhaps they are driven by property type or size. There will be certain factors of attraction that are pulling the tenants and buyers into your location to purchase or rent property. What are those factors?
- The best way to reach the target audience – There will be a target audience for every property listing. When you define that audience you can build an effective marketing plan and campaign. Don’t be ordinary when it comes to reaching the audience you require in your listing efforts. Select the right process and give the client the right recommendations.
- The marketing alternatives – I like to give a client 3 marketing alternatives and the associated budgets. When you do that, the client will generally make the choice of the middle ground. This strategy works more often than not in the case of exclusive listings, and that is when you really want the vendor paid marketing funds.
- The comparison properties – Look at your listing and then see what other properties may be on the market locally. Compare and research those other properties fully so you can clearly see what strengths and weaknesses they bring to the area. Look for any comparison pressures.
- Supply and demand – When you look into an area or precinct of your city, the supply and demand of certain property types will be evident. Understand saturation of market conditions and the impact that may have on prices or rents. Look for factors of under-supply or land shortage that may feed back into price and rent structures.
- The best method of sale or lease – There is always one good way to sell or lease something. That method will be better than the other standard approaches. Look for the reasons that such would be the case. Build your client recommendations to take those factors into account.
So there are some good things that you can do here with your clients and their property challenges. Give them sound advice and show them how you are the right person for the job.
(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)