The Seven Commercial Real Estate Leasing Mistakes to Avoid

With a career in commercial real estate leasing, there are some rules to follow and actions to take just about every working day.  If you are a leasing agent, then there are some things to think about here so you can build your leasing momentum and fill up your pipeline of opportunities. 

Who are your clients by type and location?  Typically, you will have landlords firstly as your main client base followed closely with business owners as tenants. 

There is plenty of leasing business in each category.  The only question left to ask is where they are located and what is your territory.  From that point, you can do things from a new business perspective.

Procedures in Leasing

Do not make mistakes in not taking actions in your daily routine; your career will be impacted.  Connect with your client base.  Your activities and your engagements with landlords and tenants each day are foundational to you moving ahead as a leasing agent in this changing market.

A changing market is good because there are plenty of leasing opportunities.  Landlords need good leasing agents to solve problems of vacancy and occupancy.  So, there is plenty of work to do.

What are the facts of today’s leasing market?  Try some of these:

• Rents are resetting
• Businesses are moving around
• Landlords need vacancies filled
• Tenants are looking for occupancy alternatives

These are the indicators that we can and should work within leasing today.  Use these changes to convert more leasing movement and customize your leasing services to suit.  There are plenty of things to do each day.

Actions to Resolve

When taking new and fresh action, do not make mistakes in your actions and contact processes.  These are the common mistakes that agents have or make in leasing together with comments about how you can fix that.

1. Not talking to enough tenants each day – Your database of tenants is the foundation of ongoing real estate business in leasing.  If you want to put rental and leasing deals together, the list of tenants that you have will be critical to your business activities.  You can also use your tenant list in talking with landlords and thereby converting more vacancies to listings for a location and a property type.
2. Not tapping into the prime sites and buildings – Some buildings and or locations will be of importance to tenant selection and enquiry.  Survey your area and choose those unique places where people like to occupy or properties to move their business into.  Research the prime sites and come to understand just what it is that people see as essential to new or ongoing occupancy.
3. Failure to breakdown tenant movement activity – Tenants will move for several reasons.  Perhaps a lease is coming to an end, or maybe the tenant and their business want a more realistic lease alternative.  Some landlords can be overly demanding when it comes to lease occupancy. A high rental from that inflated rent will impact the viability of a lease and rent situation.
4. Neglect of landlord services – It is not just about leasing a vacancy in a property.  It is also about moving tenants around, keeping priority shops and or premises occupied.  Landlords have ongoing rental and tenant requirements.  The lease document will be tuned to the landlord’s investment situation and financing package.  Everything should be looked at for solving the landlord’s position in property ownership and investment. 
5. Avoiding the landlord contact process or information update – If something is not leasing, it is still critical that the landlord is regularly appraised of the enquiry and inspection situations and or feedback.  Information shared with landlords builds trust.  Leasing premises and filling vacancies can take time, and information must flow to the client during the marketing program.  Lack of enquiry means that the premises should be adjusted in asking rental and or the marketing approach will need to be modified.
6. Disregard for direct marketing – If you have a property or premises to lease, ensure that you have taken the vacancy and the detail of that into the local businesses in the location.  Most leasing situations evolve in a local area or territory because the business owners and decision-makers know what they need. They have to be in a location where they can connect to their client base.  Business is not complicated.  Leasing premises is primarily a location-based initiative.
7. Lack of discipline and systems – The best leasing agents, do the same things every day that they know will connect them with their property market of landlords and tenants.  Each day make it a target to talk to a certain number of local people in each category.  Those connections grow into real estate situations and opportunities.

These strategies will help you avoid the common mistakes in commercial real estate leasing that many agents fall into.  Take your real estate business forward business forward in growth.  Engage with the landlords and tenants of your location consistently.