How to Set Your Competitive Position in Brokerage

There are plenty of agents and brokers working in investment sales.  If you are one of those, then you should think about how you can position yourself to gain a competitive strength or some ‘leverage’ that helps you attract real estate listings and clients over time.

What can you do to ‘get the edge’ in commercial real estate investment sales locally?  In the first instance, it pays to define your area of coverage and primary territory of activity before you go further.  You cannot be the ‘agent for everyone’ and the ‘agent for every property type’. 

Here is a question for you.  Consider the local property market and the activities of sales or leasing over the last few years.  What seems to be more active as a property class?  What seems to be the ‘property type of choice’ for investment and occupancy?  The answers to those two questions should drive your property activity forward in brokerage.

What Is Your Specialisation?

The specialisation and focus of working on local investment property activity is a good thing to create and concentrate on.  When you do that, you can understand just who you are competing against and monitor what they are doing in brokerage.  From that process, you can do all of the following to set some competitive strengths:

• Unique marketing position – there are many ways to market a property, and most of those factors are standard across the industry.  So what can you do in marketing a special property?  One good way to approach it is in some direct local area coverage and specific marketing.
• Deeper market coverage – if you are targeting a group of buyers, then a strategic approach to that special audience always tends to work.
• Shorter time on market – there are ways to shorten the sales cycle.  Most property clients and sellers of investment property would appreciate strategies to achieve that outcome.
• Better price outcomes – price is always something of focus and can be challenging.  The parties drive the price for a property to a transaction and the prevailing market conditions.  You may find some conditions of the market that support a better pricing position or outcome.  
• Off-market transactions – they are useful for several reasons, not the least of which is the control of the transaction in a timely way.  Put people and property situations together.
• Media releases and case studies – they are always useful for property comparisons and property zone or precinct updates.  Use them where you can.
• Buyers agent – it is good to act for buyers and those at the higher end of the investment property activity in your town or city.
• A deep and relevant database – the prospect list that you have now is a major leverage point if you develop it so in growing your contact base.

So, all of these factors can give you a good degree of control and advantage in commercial real estate investment sales.  Are you up to the challenge?