Leasing commercial property is a special process.  When you understand the elements of the process, you can improve your listing conversions and lease negotiation outcomes.  Here are some tips from our Newsletter.

So the landlord of a property approaches you to see if you can help in leasing their vacant tenancy.  The inexperienced agents immediately accept the request with little further thought.  Top agents ask quite a few questions and get the right market information before proceeding.

Here are some tips on how to lease commercial property today:

1. Get the facts about the property location and the landlord.  Check out the ownership detail on the title before proceeding.
2. Inspect the property to review the improvements in the vacant area or tenancy.  Also look at the services and amenities that are available for the tenants that take up a lease.
3. Get professional photos taken of the property so you have something to use in the marketing campaign.
4. Get physical details about the tenancy and make sure you get some plans to review.  The best plans to get a copy of are the ‘as built drawings’.  They will be helpful to the leasing process and tenant layout when you find a tenant.
5. Identify what landlord works should be done in the property before it is released to the market.  Presentation is really important today.
6. Check out the comparable properties that have not leased in the local area.  What rents are being asked in those properties and how will they impact your property?  What can you do that is better and different?
7. What are the market rents that apply to a lease of that property type today?  Give due regard to gross rents, net rents, and outgoings that will all need to be set before the marketing process for the property commences.
8. Should the landlord offer an incentive to get a new lease going in the property?  If that is the case, do your homework on the size and type of incentives that are available in the property market today and with that property type.   Any incentive that is provided should be ‘paid back’ over the duration of the lease term.  It is your job as agent to know how to amortise the incentive back into the lease and the rent structure to get the landlord back the initial cost of the incentive.
9. Establish a marketing campaign that is based on the target market for the property. Get the landlord paid advertising funds to cover for all the promotion of the property.
10. Get an exclusive listing of the property so you can devote extensive effort to marketing.
11. Draft advertising for the property and get it approved by the landlord before you proceed with the marketing.
12. When the property is released for marketing, take details of the property to all the local businesses and property owners.  This is a personal thing and should occur on a business and door by door basis.
13. When you start getting the enquiry from your marketing of the vacant tenancy, qualify the enquiry before you take people to the property.

Leasing a commercial property is not hard; it is just a specific process that should be exclusively handled by each agent.  It this way you will get better enquiry.

You can get more tips like this in our Newsletter.