The Common Sense Approach to Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
When you work with different clients and customers in commercial real estate today, you will find that they will usually and initially have a biased or incorrect understanding of the local property market and their property. The rules of client conditioning will then apply to resolve that problem, and local property market information will help you get there.
(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)
You will need to master the art of listing conversion, customer conditioning, and negotiation, given the character of the client and the property pressures that they are experiencing. Local property information will help you lead the client through some real market evidence relating to their property challenge.
So what can you do here?
Put some real values and prices into your listing, negotiation, and marketing processes. Use the market evidence that is available around you. Help the client understand the differences in prices and rentals that apply to their property type, and immediate location.
Research the property market in every possible way so that your information is up-to-date and relevant for the client’s current situation. That researched information will help you apply common sense through and as part of any property negotiation with your clients and customers. In saying that, remember exactly who your client or customer is in the property transaction, and adopt the targets that they need to achieve as part of a successful sales or leasing outcome.
Top Agents?
Top agents are good property ‘listers’ and negotiators; they have a system to support that. Of course both of those skills require practice and refinement over time. I go back to the point that client conditioning will be a professional part of your commercial real estate business and client services. It is a constant process to improve at a personal level. Put the client at the centre of your real estate business in every way possible.
Here are some ideas to help you list more commercial properties and negotiate more transactions from a base of value and common sense:
- Track the levels of inquiry that apply to a precinct or property type. Given that you should have plenty of listings within your brokerage at any point in time, this should be a relatively easy task across the team. Break the information down into property segments, property types, and precincts. Understand what the buyers and the tenants are looking for today when it comes to commercial real estate occupancy and investment. The levels of enquiry will shift and change throughout the year, so make sure that your business processes are monitoring those changes. Research the activities of inquiry throughout the year.
- Differentiate the results that you achieve across open listings and exclusive listings. Your conversion rates should be significantly higher with exclusive listings, so aim for that. Time on market should be shorter, and the prices that you achieve in both sales and leasing results should be more substantial.
- The property marketing process that you adopt today for your exclusive listings should be direct and unique; don’t be ‘ordinary’ when it comes to spreading the message about a listing or property advantage. When you convert a listing exclusively, the marketing efforts that you apply should be highly targeted and involve a good degree of personal activity. Get involved with your exclusive listings so that your conversions are pushed higher, and the inquiry rates are constantly escalating. You can do more with a small group of exclusive listings than you can with many open listings. If you are looking to improve your commercial real estate business, exclusive listings will be a valuable strategy to adopt at a personal level.
When you delve deeply into your local property market, the values and the results will be there across sales and leasing activity to help you with any listing or future transaction. Gather the information around you so that you can help the client through the variables of property change and churn throughout the year.
Recognize that the property market is always under flux and variation. Positioning yourself to work with the active players and segments in the market with particular focus on VIP property owners and business leaders.
