Location Based Property Leasing for Commercial and Retail Property
As a real estate agent you will be asked to lease commercial retail and industrial property from time to time. As part of that process, your leasing processes should be specialized and geared to the local area. The more that you know about the local area, the easier the leasing process and the more specialized your skills. Listings will be easier to convert.
To the location based property leasing incorporates knowledge centered on the following:
- The trends and enquiries for a new space to occupy will come from the local business community in the main. Most leasing, and perhaps even as high as 90 per cent, will be generated through and centered on the local business community. On that basis you need to know the key businesses in the area and their pressures or changes to occupancy. Constant contact with the business community is the foundation of significant success in property leasing. This is the demand or churn factor that should be tracked and documented into your database.
- At any given point in time, the size of the vacant space in your local area will be a number of that requires tracking. Established properties will have changes to their levels of occupancy throughout the year; you need to know when that impact flows into the market and how it will impact rentals.
- Knowing what properties are coming on the market from newly constructed developments is another key factor that will impact rental levels. This is a critical supply factor that should be studied and monitored in your local area. Tenants are sometimes swayed towards newer properties simply because of the levels of image, presentation, and the more modern provision of services and amenities within the new property. To compensate for this problem, an ongoing renovation and relocation strategy is recommended for older properties so they can be maintained at a reasonable level of occupancy attractiveness.
- Existing properties in the local area will have impact on each other by way of rental levels and pressures of vacancy. This means that the vacancies arising in other properties should be monitored for levels of asking rental, levels of incentive, time on market, timing of the vacancy, and marketing processes.
- Third party leasing or licenses to enhance the property leasing performance should be monitored. Look for extra rental opportunities such as car parking, roof antennas, storage, mall licenses, short term leasing, and signage.
- Local businesses that occupy premises on current leases will have an expiry date to their existing lease. Find out what that date is so you can track the opportunity of directing the tenant to one of your buildings when the time is right.
- Rent review activity in existing buildings will establish levels of market rental. In most cases that market rental will be a useful comparison when it comes to leasing other similar nearby vacant premises. The only extra component to add to the leasing or equation will be the existence and size of a potential leasing incentive.
Location based property leasing can be a very specialized and successful service for real estate agents to provide. Take the time to track these issues above and improve your market share.