The Right Way to Take Tenant Enquiries in Commercial Real Estate Leasing
I have been asked many times about just what a leasing agent should focus on when it comes to establishing market share. Newer agents generally think that having tenant enquiry and then satisfying it is the way to grow the leasing business; that however is not the case.
If you chase around the property market after tenants you will not earn a lot of commission, and the tenants will waste your time. Unless you are engaged by the tenant to find a property, do not spend a lot of time working to find their ‘ideal’ property.
The best way to grow your real estate leasing business is with listings. When you have the listings locked away exclusively, you will have the enquiry coming to you. That is how you build your business as a leasing agent or broker. Certainly you can track your enquiries coming in and put them into your database, but don’t let those enquiries take you away from your main focus of creating listings.
With this type of focus you can follow these rules:
- Looking for vacant space through the market locally
- Connecting with landlords regards leasing expiries coming up
- Looking for new leasing projects under development with multiple vacancies to lease
- Checking the trends of market rents as they apply to the property type and the region
- Understanding the needs of corporate tenants when it comes to relocations and growth or contraction factors
- Connecting with franchise tenants to see what leasing needs they may have
When you match enquiries to quality listings you have something to work with. That is why exclusivity ranks very high in agent performance; focus on the listings as a factor of prospecting. The agents that can convert more exclusive listings will always command a better level of enquiry coming in to the brokerage from tenants.