Proven Strategies to Work with More Buyers in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
The investment segment of the commercial property market can be very lucrative and rewarding for brokers and agents. There will always be investors seeking to acquire, improve, and dispose of commercial, retail, or industrial assets. (NB – you can get more client and investor tips in Commercial Real Estate Snapshot right here)
If this is an attractive part of the property market for you, then target the right people. It is necessary to work closely with several investors to understand their focus, targets, and their challenges from a property perspective. Get closer to the people so you can offer the specialised services that they require.
Business Momentum
The essential idea here is that you can achieve a good degree of momentum as an agent or a broker in your property market through working with investors and local property owners. As they seek to change or improve their assets or portfolio over time, you can be the solution and provide the specialist services to help them. Specialisation in a property type and specific location is a key to the process. How do you rank on those assessments?
Before going too much further here, it can be said that you can work as a buyer’s agent, in direct contrast to the typical seller’s agent approach. Make your choices in commercial real estate and specialise; know who your clients are by category and location.
Your Client Focus
It is time to focus on buyers of property as clients. Here are some ideas below to help you work with more local property buyers and in doing so provide expert opinion and assistance:
- Location specific – get to know the properties and owners of assets in prime precincts and desirable locations. It is far easier to generate good quality sales activity from a specific and deep concentration into the prime property precincts. Those agents that spread their efforts too far usually fail to convert the business. There are just too many things to understand when it comes to prices, rents, supply, and demand.
- Local area zoning – get copies of the local development plan so you understand where the best zones may be for longer term investment and or development opportunity. Focus your prospecting into those prime zoning precincts.
- Passing income and property values – when you understand the levels of market rental in a location and the passing rents for a property, you can relate those numbers to the yield expectations or capitalisation rate for the area. The question will then be, is the property comparable to the expectations of local property investors and market in general? How does the subject property compare to the prevailing market conditions?
- Tenancy mix – when you are working for investors as buyers of investment property, the tenancy mix will be critical to the future of the asset and the cash flow. The tenancy mix therefore needs to be investigated and reviewed comprehensively. The best way to do that is to inspect the property physically, and then review all the lease documentation. Go deeply into each lease given that the separate terms and conditions can impact the property cash flow and the lease occupancy. Some leases will be stronger than others when it comes to property investment. You need to see the differences.
Be aware of the ‘industry averages’ when it comes to the different property types of office, industrial, and retail. Also, be aware of the averages that apply to the precinct and the classifications or ages of the assets.
When you know these numbers, it gets a lot easier when it comes to you working with commercial and retail real estate buyers. Your commercial real estate listing pitch and or negotiations can be based around provable facts and numbers.
