When you know what is going on in the commercial real estate market, you can adjust your business efforts into the things that show opportunity.  You can also avoid the parts of the property market that are slowing and time wasting.

The best property agents focus on the best parts of the market; that’s the rule.  By monitoring a few categories of activity you can see your place and efforts in the bigger picture.  If you are a sales agent, that process is really important.

Look for these things

Here are some property factors to chase and monitor in your local town or city:

1. Signboard counts – It is a valuable process to add up all the signboards on properties locally on a monthly basis. Differentiate between ‘open’ and ‘exclusive’ listings when you do that as there is a real difference between each from a market share perspective.
2. Internet listings – Go through the internet listings each month on the same basis as the signboards. Understand how many listings there are for each brokerage and agent.  Soon you will know exactly who the top agent is for the area from an ‘exclusivity’ perspective.
3. Vacancy factors – The level of vacant property locally will be a good ‘barometer’ of business sentiment. Understand what is happening in the local business community as that will impact property ownership and occupancy.
4. Time on market – How long does it take to shift a listing with a sale? Some listings are better than others so you will need to differentiate on quality of property as you assess these numbers.
5. Prices per unit of area – When something sells, understand the price from the perspective of property type, location, and unit of area. From those numbers you can compare transactions across your region.  Soon you will see the active and popular locations for investment and business occupation.
6. Enquiry rates – It is always good to know what people are looking for when it comes to local property. Are the levels of property enquiry going up or are they falling?  You can also relate that question to property types and locations.  When a person enquires about a property, find out how they located you and what they are looking for by way of property.
7. Best marketing methods – Some marketing methods are more successful than others. When you do a monthly marketing assessment from inbound enquiry you can determine exactly how you should market new listings and for what reasons.
8. Best methods of sale – Understand the best sale methods for attracting buyers and creating inspections. It is likely that any quality property should be directed to a time based sale method such as auction, or tender.  Put a bit of ‘urgency’ in the method of sale so that the buyers that are interested actually have to make a decision and take action by a close off date.

Do there are some good things that you can do here with tracking sales activity locally in commercial real estate.  When you know what is happening in the property market, you will be able to take action on the most rewarding parts of the property market.