Commercial Agents – How to Farm Your Sales and Listing Territory

Commercial real estate is similar to other types of property  in that you must logically and consistently work your territory. Your  success in the process will give you greater listing opportunity and future  deals. This will have immediate impact on your income and your  success. This says that you must therefore be diligent and logical and how  you approach territory management and control. We call the territory your  ‘patch’. In controlling your territory, you must do so geographically  street by street, so that you do not miss any properties or create any ‘black  spots’ or ‘holes’ in your information. Many agents and salespeople have  had situations where they have overlooked a simple small property in their  canvassing processes only to find another agents board on the property offering  it for sale or lease. Nothing can be more frustrating than seeing another  agent’s signboard located inside your geographical area and a street that you  canvassed last week.

Your Canvassing Object

In the territory that you work you will be optimising your  commercial real estate awareness and knowledge of a number of property  matters.

They are –

• Existing businesses
• Developers
• Vacant land
• Redundant properties
• Development sites
• Property zoning areas and policies
• Owner occupiers of property
• Investor property owners of property
• Tenants occupying property
• Allied professional property related groups and people  (solicitors, accountants, engineers, architects, quantity surveyors, valuers,  town planners)
• Local Council Planning officers

The list is not finite, and can be improved to the specific  nature of your region. To get thing started, firstly every major property  in your territory must be high on the agenda for identifying ownership details  and location. When you have this detail you move to more secondary  property, and after this has been secured you will then get the detail of all  remaining property through your region.     It pays to get quickly active in the known property  ‘hotspots’ such as industrial parks, and office business precincts, so that you  can find to ‘hot’ listings before they go to other salespeople or agents.

Mapping and Planning

The best way to control your long term activities is to get  a street map of the area and then work the geographic location in  stages. Essentially you need to understand your area in great detail and  have a solid awareness of the following matters –

• property ownership
• tenants and decision makers therein
• property zoning and potential changes there to
• property prices by property type and region
• property rental by property type and region
• property outgoings by property type and region
• lease detail and tenancy detail for all major and targeted  properties
• a lease expiry profile for all major buildings and for the  region
• regional business demographics
• regional population demographics
• regional economic demographics
• road changes and major traffic flows
• other competition properties and listings
• other agents in the area and their listings
• recent sales results in the area
• Details of properties that have been sold approximately  three years ago and beyond, as these are the next properties that will enter  the sales arena for disposal.
• Details of properties that have been leased approximately  three years ago and beyond, as these are the next properties that will have a  need for leasing services.
• Details of property owners that bought property about three  years ago in the region as they are most likely to be sufficiently cashed up to  acquire again soon.

This information will help you understand future opportunity  and position your services such as sales, leasing, and property management.