Category: retail property

Retail property sales and leasing training

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Shopping Center Managers – How to Reposition and Improve a Retail Shopping Center

Any shopping centre today can be a challenging asset from a performance perspective.  There are many challenges to track, balance, and manage.  The skills of the property manager and or leasing manager applied to the task will be critical to asset performance.

Fees for services

It should also be said that the fees to manage any retail property are also usually higher than the fees charged within industrial or office property management.  The skills of the people deployed on the property will reflect on the asset outcomes, so you must employ the right people for the task.

People Costs

Good quality people with the retail experience will cost more from a salary perspective.  The property outgoings should (subject to local retail leasing laws and regulations) be structured through the leases for management fees and staff salary recovery.

Taking on a new property?

If you are taking on the management of a shopping centre from a previous owner or previous property manager, there are many things to look at immediately and specifically.  Getting things under control quickly should be a priority with a retail asset.  You can use a checklist for that process.  Here are 4 specific ideas to help you get started:

  1. Arrears – Let’s start at the money or rental end of property performance. Understand where the rental arrears are and why they are happening.  Separate strategies will be required to get those things controlled.
  2. Vacancies – What and where are the vacancies now in the property and how are they impacting customer and tenant outcomes? Look at filling the vacancies quickly even if you must do short term rentals at lower base rents.
  3. Tenants and tenant mix – Assess the tenants in the property for current issues and volatility. A weak tenant mix will drag down property performance.  Talk to the tenants and ask about customer sales and customer requirements.  It is very likely that the tenants will know what is needed in a retail property to resolve shop placement and mix problems.
  4. Income and expenditure – Review the cash flow results for the property over the last 12 months. You will see the timing factors from high cost issues such as rates and taxes, as well as capital expense items.  Then look at current rental levels, vacancy factors, and upcoming rent reviews.  From these things you can create a budget for the property.  The object here is for you to comprehensively control the money coming into the property and flowing out to the various stakeholders.  You can then shape the financial factors of the property in a controlled way into the future.

These 4 factors will lead to greater property understanding and control.  When you can see what is happening in the retail property or shopping center, you have something that you can base your future strategies around.

You can get more tips about Shopping Center Management and Leasing in our eCourse right here.

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How to Set up a Customer Service Desk in a Retail Shopping Center

As part of the property management strategy for any sizeable retail shopping centre, you can and should develop a customer service station function and service within the property.  I say ‘sizeable’ because you need plenty of tenants in the tenant mix to pay for the customer service strategy.  The cost for operating a service desk can be quite reasonable.

So what’s the idea here with a customer service station in a shopping centre?  Try some of these:

  • It will help customers find what they want
  • It will help control problems and challenges with customers
  • You can use it as a marketing point for competitions and sale campaigns

The station should be located where it will be of the greatest use to the customers within the property and in the common area.  There are many benefits to be had by all with an effective customer service point.

It should be noted that the customer service station is a cost factor for the property that should be allowed for in building operational costs and be potentially funded from property marketing.  There will be salaries to account for and costs associated with the operations of the customer service desk.

Set the Rules

So here are some rules to the process of establishing a customer service station and operations point within any medium to large retail shopping centre:

  1. Integrate security services into the customer service location. There will be many ongoing security issues evolving from both customers and tenants.  There will also be specific factors to consider such as lost children, lost goods, injury, risk management, and personal safety.  The evacuation of the property may involve the people in the customer service or operations desk.  So the desk or customer service point will have a number of roles to fill.
  2. The people manning the service desk will need to be suitably trained and skilled with risk management and injury issues. They may also need to be trained in crowd control, customer service, first aid and safety matters.  The insurance company carrying the risk for the property will have significant interest in risk management controls and safety registers all of which will normally happen from or in conjunction with the service desk and the personnel manning it.
  3. Understand the property and common safety responses and possible risk events. Look at how customers move through the property and into the tenancies.  Special considerations will be needed when it comes to access points, car parking, common areas, and amenities.  How will customers find the customer service desk and or communicate with it in an emergency?  There should be a crisis management plan active that allows for the movement of customers, the activities of tenants, and the management personnel on site.  It is quite likely that the customer service point will be involved in that process.
  4. Lost and found services should be controlled at the customer desk. Registers of lost and found goods should be kept.  In larger shopping centres the amount of lost and found goods on a daily basis is quite high.
  5. The help desk can also guide people in the right direction when it comes to finding tenancies and the common amenities. In large shopping centres that can be a valuable service. A map of the property including all shops should be available at the desk for handing to customers as they seek to find certain tenancies and certain tenancy types.
  6. Some shopping centres incorporate gift wrapping services at the customer service points. When the seasonal sales are active, the strategy works quite well in supporting customers.
  7. Have a place at the service desk where people can lodge applications for casual employment at the shopping centre and with the tenancies.
  8. Gift certificates can be issued from the service desk. Competitions can also be promoted from that location with competition applications being lodged and collected at that point.
  9. Public announcements could occur from the service desk.
  10. A mail drop off point or parcel delivery service can be incorporated into the customer counter.
  11. A directory board should be in close proximity to the service desk. There should be a map of the property incorporated into the directory board layout.
  12. Wireless Internet Services can be made available in close proximity to the service desk. That then is a service for some customers.
  13. Wheelchairs, child prams, and motorised mobility chairs could be hired from the customer service desk.

So the idea here is that the customer service desk is a convenience factor, a communication point, and customer service in many different ways.

Understand the costs of the operations desk or customer service point and the services to be offered.  Build those costs into the marketing budget for the property.  The marketing costs should also be structured and costed into the tenancy leases as a contribution from all tenants across the property.

Tenants and customers will benefit from the establishment of a customer service desk in a shopping centre.

You can get more tips about Shopping Center Management and Leasing in our ‘Snapshot’ eCourse right here.

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Attractive Shopping Centers Create Better Customer Sales and Tenant Results

If you are a specialist in retail shopping centre leasing and management, you will understand the importance of retail property appearance and design.  Customers like to feel comfortable, safe, and happy as they move around within shopping centres and look for the goods and services that they require.

A good shopping centre experience will encourage immediate sales and repeat business.  You really do want your customers coming back to your shopping centre in a regular and ongoing way.  The benefits to both the tenants and the landlord are significant over time.

Shopping Center Facts

Consider the following facts:

  1. A GREAT PROPERTY: A successful shopping centre will attract more customers and tenants in an ongoing way. It is quite easy to see when a shopping centre is trading at successful levels; the customers to a retail property can also interpret and see those issues.  When the tenants are successfully trading within the property, the retail sales are likely to reduce both tenant mix volatility and vacancy factors.  So the focus here is to make your shopping centre visually successful in every way possible.
  2. VACANCY CHALLENGES: If you have any vacancies to work with, then do so selectively and professionally. Keep a close eye on your lease expiries coming up and your lease renewals.  Negotiate those issues early and directly with the tenants involved.  Don’t let vacant shops remain vacant for too long.  Put covers and hoardings across vacant shop areas.  Put advertising material and marketing material on those holdings.  What you want to do here is remove the visual negativity of the vacancy from the property and the customers.
  3. PROPERTY PRESENTATION: Set some standards within the property relating to retail tenant signage and shop presentation. The signage for retailers should be commonly positioned and designed.  Good signage will always help with the level of sales and the customer experience.  Signage specifications will maintain the quality and the positioning of that signage.
  4. VISUAL STANDARDS AND ILLUMINATION: Lighting standards will always help with property presentation and believe it or not sales. Most retail shopping centres today are trading at all hours and on that basis seven days a week.  The lighting strategies within the retail property, in the car park, and within tenancies should be suitably specified and maintained.  Poor lighting directly reflects in poor retail sales.  The lighting within the common areas and within the individual tenant shops should be specified for maximum retail impact and customer safety.
  5. WHAT CUSTOMERS THINK: Understand the customer experience from the very time that they enter the property. Look at how customers into the car park, how they move through the car park and into the shopping mall or shopping centre.  Look at the factors of signage, lighting, security, and common area design.  Are the services and amenities of suitable quality to encourage customer use and help them stay longer within the property?  If you can extend customer visit time, you can potentially improve the levels of sales across the tenancy mix.
  6. TENANCY FACTS: On a final note it is worthwhile recommending that you do a full tenancy review and a tenant mix study with any shopping centre on an annual basis. It is a professional service that you can provide to the landlords that you work with.  What you want to do here is understand where the threats to the tenancy mix are potentially derailing tenancy sales opportunity and or customer visits.  The right tenants chosen for the property will encourage shopping centre success over time.  Any weaknesses within the tenancy mix should be resolved or remove over time.  Understand what the customers expect and require when it comes to the standard shopping experience.  Undertake a customer review all marketing survey on a regular basis so that the tenant mix changes are driven from customer information and tenant mix performance.
  7. KNOW THE FACTS: Delve into the facts about the property. When you take a serious look at your tenancy mix, you can see the challenges, the strengths, and the weaknesses with the anchor tenants, and the specialty tenants; a full tenancy review should occur each year as part of the property business plan.  Split your tenancy mix up into desirable tenants and those that should be removed at the next leasing opportunity.  Also look for the missing tenants within the tenancy mix that you can target and find when vacancies arise.  Visit other local shopping centres on different days of the week and at different times of the day to see how they are performing from a tenant mix perspective.

So there are plenty of good things that you can do here when it comes to retail property performance and shopping centre tenancy review.  Maintain the appearance and the function of your shopping centre so that it can attract the best tenants and for customers.

The activities of customers and tenants are always linked when it comes to shopping centre performance.  As the leasing manager and or the property manager, you are the best person to develop effective and direct strategies across those issues.  Over time that means you will be help in the property performance and landlord results.

You can get more tips about Shopping Center Management and Leasing in our eCourse ‘Snapshot’ right here.

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Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Why You Should Target Tenants in Your Prospecting

In commercial real estate brokerage leasing and sales you can find plenty of leads and opportunities when you target building occupants in a regular and ongoing way.  Research your listing territory by building and then split those buildings up into tenants and businesses.  Make direct contact.

Some business segments and industry types will be under pressures of change at different times during the year.  Local economic circumstances and business sentiment will drive property change for some businesses and industry types.

The Canvassing Process

Assuming you can get this process underway, here are some concepts to feed into the commercial real estate canvassing process:

  1. Their business intentions – When you take and review all the tenants in a location, many will have future intentions to feed into their movement and growth plans. Customers and staff all place pressure on a business and with how things are done.  In a manufacturing segment where industrial property is involved, property configuration and use also rises to the top of the ‘planning’ list.  Most property decisions are made just before or after a change of financial year.  If you stay in regular contact with business owners and leaders, they are likely to remember you when a property challenge or change arises.
  2. Factors of expansion and contraction – Some businesses need more or less space. Canvass your territory every day and look at how some businesses seem to be trading.  If the property is of an industrial nature you can usually see pressures of change and occupation in and around the property.  Observe what you can.  Ask plenty of questions.  Meet more local people.
  3. Relocation requirements – Some businesses need to be located close to transport, highways, raw materials, and customer markets. Find out how those factors integrate into your location and property types.
  4. Difficult landlords – Some landlords are notoriously challenging and unsupportive of tenant occupancy and comfort; those landlords can focus too much on rental returns and less on property performance. Over time that can lead to a general exodus of tenants from a property.  Look for tenants that are disgruntled with the landlords in property ownership.  Check out locations for distressed tenant mixes and properties with higher vacancy factors.  There will be reasons for issues like that happening.
  5. Occupancy costs – Every tenant is concerned about paying rent and other occupancy costs. You should know what the rental averages are for a property and a lease by property type and location.  If a property is aggressively rented, the vacancy factor is likely to climb over time.  Distressed tenants are likely to move.  That then is a leasing prospect and opportunity.

Look further into buildings, tenant lists, property occupancy, and business activity.  You will always find leasing opportunities with tenants wanting to change location.

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Commercial Real Estate Brokers – How to Improve a Retail Tenant Mix

In any retail property or shopping centre a specific tenant mix strategy is essential to encourage sales and trade for the tenants, whilst also underpinning retail property performance for the landlord.  The retail plan or strategy helps with key issues such as lease negotiation, tenant selection, retail tenant clustering, and occupancy targets.

Any retail property should have a tenant mix plan as part of the annual property performance scheme.  Something has to draw customers to the property in an ongoing way.  That is where the plan and the mix become important in the leasing process.

The Base Strategy

So, in doing this a number of things come together to make things work successfully for both the tenants and the landlord.  You could say that a successful retail property is a product of a finely balance landlord priorities, tenant placement, and tenant occupancy relationship; the retail leasing strategy is at the centre of all of that.

So what are the elements of a tenant plan for the landlords that you work with?  How does the mix become important in the performance of the shopping centre in your location?  The suggestion here is that all the tenants and leases within a property should be looked at in a ‘global’ fashion and compared to property market conditions and opportunities.

The Vacancy Factors?

If a vacancy exists in the property, then the ideal tenant to fill the vacancy should be located into the cluster of other tenants within that property precinct.  That is why you do a mix review to answer questions like these below:

  • What are customers looking for in the property?
  • How many tenants do you have in each of the retail segments? (e.g. fashion, food, sports, travel, etc.)
  • Given the retail segments in the property, what are the most successful and why is that?
  • Understanding the sales numbers from the property, what are the successful rental generators by tenant type?
  • What will be the ideal lease duration in that location?
  • What market rents should you ask for the target tenant type and location?

When you know the answers to these questions then you can move ahead into the specific decisions impacting the lease negotiation in any shop vacancy that you may have. You can then improve the retail tenant mix.  Those questions to put you on track would include:

  1. LEASE DURATIONS: Given the other tenants in the vacancy proximity, what will be the lease duration and expiry date that will not overlap or complicate other vacancies in the same general area of the property?
  2. RENTAL ESCALATIONS AND OPTIONS: What will be the standards of rent reviews and lease options to be set in seeking a new tenant? In most cases you will want these issues to favour the landlord and their investment targets.
  3. THE BEST RENTAL TYPE: Will you need a net or gross rent for the location? Your decision will impact incentives and outgoings recoveries for leasing the space.
  4. TENANT MARKETING STRATEGY: How will you market the space? Your targeted group of tenants will require a specific marketing approach; generally that will be a mixture of direct mail, cold calling, door knocking, and industry publications.  You can also talk to other tenants in the property in case a clear match of new tenant can be encouraged through existing contacts.

So there are some things that can be done here with any single vacancy in a retail property.  The tenant mix becomes an important factor in property performance and optimisation.

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Commercial Real Estate Leasing Agents – Why You Should Understand Lease Covenants

As you service and help commercial real estate investment clients, lease covenants and terms can be a critical part of property performance and the established tenancy mix strategy. Every lease can be potentially different, and in a property with a number of tenants in occupancy, lease interpretation and management becomes really important.

 

To take matters a bit further, it is worthwhile establishing a checklist of lease topics and ideas to review with every property investor client. Understand what the client is looking for and how the terms and conditions of any lease will impact the clients overall investment result.

 

Ways to Review Leases

Here are some basic ideas and questions to raise and investigate as part of the lease structure and review process:

  1. Property Usage – understand the legal use of the property and the current zoning that applies to existing planning regulations. The tenant and the lease should be matched to the legal use of the property. The lease itself should clearly determine and control how the property will be used by the tenant. The permitted use clause within the lease should be quite specific and detailed. In a property with many tenants this strategy becomes even more important and critical to the tenant mix.
  2. Rental Structure and Strategy – the lease will reflect the strategy behind rental charges and collections. The lease may reflect gross or net rentals depending on the occupancy situation. Outgoings will also be recovered as part of the rental strategy across the year. Always review a lease in detail to understand how the rental structure works and the outgoings are recovered. When you understand the figures, you can compare them to the levels of market rental in the local area for the property type.
  3. Lease Terms and Conditions – comprehensively review all the terms and conditions of every lease within a property. Look for the variations that could have an impact on the landlord and their investment requirements. Look at the expiry dates and the options situations that will occur during the lease term. Some leases will impact the property cash flow and hence the investment. Learn to read lease documentation and interpret the longer term property cash flow. Compare the net rental results regularly to the potential property value, and in doing so achieve the capitalization rate or yield result for the client. Compare those figures to the current market conditions and the property type.
  4. Property Budget and Rental Budget – when working with an entire property and the lease strategies behind the investment, ask to see the overall property budget and particularly both income and expenditure in an itemized form. From the budget you can assess expenditure rates per unit of area and compare those expenditures to other properties locally; you can also see how outgoings expenditure is recovered from the tenants given the existing lease documentation. From an investment perspective, your leased property should be within the expenditure averages for the property type.

In reviewing these four topics, you can move further into issues of property performance. Start with the basic information and move into levels of greater detail with every lease document, each tenant in the mix, and cash flow opportunity.

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A Busy Day in the Life of a Shopping Center Manager

A Retail Shopping Center Manager when compared to others working in our industry is perhaps the busiest person by job type and specialization.  The type of retail property and the size of the tenant mix will place a lot of pressures on work load and business processes for the Center Manager.  That is why property management fees and support team requirements are significantly higher in retail property when compared to that of office or industrial property.

Can you ‘hack’ the intensity of retail property performance and the specialization that goes with that?  If you can, then the retail segment is a good place to work and grow market share.

Let’s look at the average working day for a Shopping Center Manager.  They have plenty of things to do, and here are some of the most common:

  1. Tenant contact – Most tenants in a shopping center are of the smaller and individual type.  They thrive when the shopping center is performing well; they struggle when the reverse is the case.  For that very reason a good manager will keep in close contact with all the tenants in the tenant mix, and watch the integration of anchor and specialty tenants from a customer and client perspective.  They look for the strengths and weaknesses and work with both.
  2. Marketing – A good shopping center will be comprehensively marketed to the customers and the local demographic.  A market budget will certainly help that occur but the money for marketing has to be carefully controlled to the shopping seasons and the activities within the property.
  3. Competing properties – In any city or suburb it is likely that other landlords and Shopping Center Managers are attempting to draw on any good tenants that they find in other properties.  For that reason it pays for a Center Manager to have a tenant retention plan and leasing strategy to help minimize the vacancy factor.
  4. Tenant mix – A successful tenant mix is one that matches closely the customer requirements and anchor tenants in a property.  The larger the shopping center, the more complex the controls and choices become; there are then issues to consider with clustering of tenants, renovation and relocation issues, and market rents.
  5. Arrears – In the ‘real world’ of shopping center management it is the case that arrears will happen with some tenants from time to time; a lot depends on the success of the property and the permitted use or offering of the tenant.  Look for arrears and catch them early before they do too much damage to the property cash flow.
  6. Lease updates and critical dates – Every lease will have dates to watch.  Those dates will be critical from a leasing and rental perspective.  If the shopping centre has plenty of tenants to watch, then the critical date management process will be all that more complex.
  7. Landlord reporting and contact – Some landlords require intense reporting on a daily or weekly basis; the end of month reporting can also be complex and significant.  The Center Manager has to fully commit to the landlord reporting and contact process.
  8. Maintenance and Risk Management – In every property there will be maintenance issues to fix; to do that efficiently the Center Manager should have a reporting and response process to maintenance that takes into account the elements of urgency and damage potential as well as personal injury potential.
  9. Contractor – Some maintenance contractors are better than others when it comes to maintenance response, prices, skills, and knowledge.  It is not unusual for the contractors in a large shopping center to be assessed annually for the services they offer given the demands of the property.

From these things it can easily be seen that the Shopping Center Manager should have very special skills and good business systems.

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Create a Rich Source of Tenant Leasing Needs in Commercial and Retail Property

When you work in commercial or retail property leasing, you need a rich source of tenants and business leads.  There are a number of resources that you can use for that purpose, and on that basis it is simply a matter of selecting the ones that work for you and your property market.  Develop your leasing strategies.

Here are some of the best leasing sources of business names and tenant identities:

  1. Check out all of the major buildings in your leasing territory.  When it comes to buildings that contain multiple tenants, it is a matter of taking down or capturing the details from the directory board that is located in the property.  The easiest way to do that is to take a photograph of the directory board on your mobile telephone.  You can process and review the photograph later.
  2. From the details that you get in the previous ‘directory board’ step, it is a matter of telephoning down all the businesses in the particular buildings to discuss future leasing and occupation needs.  Leases come to an end at some stage for all types of reasons.  Some tenants prefer to move when that occurs, and on that basis you can be the source of market information and relocation opportunity.
  3. Get a copy of the local business telephone book as it applies to your location, town and city.  It is preferable to use the telephone book in hardcopy rather than online.  That is simply because the telephone book can be logically processed and marked off with a colored pen or highlighters as you proceed through it.  Starting at the beginning of the telephone book work through every business name to find those businesses that are located in your priority suburbs and leasing territory.  Whilst this process may seem tedious, it is simply a matter of reviewing one or two pages of telephone numbers each night in preparation for your prospecting processes the next day.  One telephone book can take you an entire year to move through.  You will however see that the system is quite easy to implement and soon you will be covering 5 to 10 pages a day as part of that process.  One page of the telephone book should give you two or three numbers to call; cold calls lead to information and potential meetings with the right tenants.  You may wish to choose a greater number of businesses given the filtering process and the criteria of targeted tenants locally.
  4. You can also get some good leads and opportunities from using the Internet methodically and specifically.  In your town or city, there will be a business ‘Yellow Pages’ telephone book online that you can use for this very purpose.  In most cases you can search the ‘Yellow pages’ based on targeted business types and by suburbs.  From that search process you can get specific names of businesses and tenants to put into your prospecting activities and cold calling systems.

So these four strategies are quite simple.  You can see why things need to be methodical and systemized.

When you create a large list of local businesses and tenants, and then take the time to understand their occupation needs from a leasing perspective, you are of high value to the landlords that you serve.  Use your database as leverage in this way when it comes to winning a property leasing appointment.  Tell the landlord about your database and how accurate and up to date it is.  They will find it difficult to ignore an agent with a comprehensive and up to date database of tenants.

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Anchor Tenants Bring Value to Shopping Center Tenant Mix

Anchor tenants today bring a lot of value to a shopping center and the tenancy mix.  The right anchor tenants should be chosen on the match as it applies to the local shopper demographic.  In some cases you may have a few major tenants of this type positioned strategically around the property.

So there are many different types of anchor tenants, some large, some small, and some being part of a much larger group or franchise chain.  What ‘anchor’ would you see as appropriate for a new shopping center in your area or town or city?  It is a question that arises very often as new shopping center developments are created or planned.

Retail leasing experts bring great value to a shopping center when they can introduce quality anchor tenants to the mix and the future of the property.  Here are some questions to consider as part of providing a service like that:

  1. In what location should the larger tenant be located to optimise their function and integration with other specialty tenants in the building?  To answer that question you will need to know why people will visit the property and how they will move through it.
  2. Understanding the demographic of the shoppers coming to the property will help with planning the leasing process, rentals, and market rentals.  Essentially a good tenancy mix will underpin property performance in a major way.  To get to know the shoppers and their needs, undertake a marketing survey in the area and review the transport methods that will bring people to the property.  As part of that, understand the roads and highways that may have an impact on access and exposure to passing traffic.
  3. Most anchor tenants will require occupancy for a long period of time.  That will usually be 10 or more years.  They will ask for options for renewal as part of that initial lease negotiation process.  In considering these facts the landlord should require an early advice as to option renewal.  If the tenant does not require renewing their lease it is wise that the lease provides for notification of such at least 18 months prior to the event.  In that way the landlord can start looking for a new tenant.
  4. The rental structures for this type of larger tenant will be different and sometimes based on turnover with a base rental.  On a ‘per square foot’ or ‘per square meter’ basis the rents will be considerably less that the rent that is paid by the smaller specialty tenants.
  5. The anchor tenant should be heavily involved in the marketing of the retail property with all the other specialty tenants.  There should be a marketing levy for all tenants to contribute to.  As to how that levy is implemented and controlled is a question for shopping center management.

In closing on these points, it should be said that the lease structure for a larger tenant of ‘anchor’ status will likely be a lot different than the standard lease applied to the ordinary tenants.  An expert retail leasing specialist can bring a lot of relevance to the lease negotiation process and thereby optimise the integration of the main tenant into the mix of others.

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Shop Leasing Factors in Retail Shopping Centre Performance

When you have a retail property to lease, there are some important pieces of information that you will need to build a leasing strategy and any marketing process.  Gather the facts before you take steps towards lease marketing or lease negotiation.

Retail Property performance will vary substantially from location to location and city to city.  It is therefore very hard to compare retail properties in diverse locations.  You must know your market in a comprehensive way.  Here are some tips to help you with gathering the right facts relative to leasing any retail vacancy:

  1. Occupancy costs need to be assessed relative to the vacancy.  Occupancy costs will include rental, outgoings, and other sundry charges that apply to leasing and the vacant space.  Any tenant will question the costs and understand the viability of the business to apply in the location.  Occupancy costs and the ability to make sales will vary by location in the property, and by the type of tenant.  This then says that there is a difference in sales and turnover capability between tenant types; they also have differing profit margins.
  2. New tenants to a property will be concerned with premises location and its proximity to other successful tenants.  That’s where clustering becomes an issue in a retail property.  A cluster of tenants can extend the interest and purchase potential of the shopper.  Understand the adjacent leases and just when they will be expiring.  Is there an intention to find other tenants for those locations?
  3. The anchor tenant or tenants in a property are an important draw card for brining customers to the shopping centre.  The anchor tenant lease should be watched for stability and longevity.
  4. Rental types and market rentals will vary according to location and market interest.  You should check out the rentals and vacancy factors in nearby retail properties.  That will help you understand the factors of attraction that apply to finding any new tenant.
  5. What would you consider as the typical demographic shopper profile for the property?  That shopper profile will impact the tenant mix and choice of tenant.  Choose your tenants wisely.
  6. Improvements in the tenancy area and landlords works may vary subject to the lease negotiation.  Understand what the landlord is prepared to do in the premises to attract a good tenant.
  7. The sales averages for the property or MAT (Moving Annual Turnover) will be of interest to any new potential tenant as will the customer counts for the property.  Get those facts and understand how they can provide leverage in leasing any new vacancy.
  8. Lease incentives could apply to attract a tenant to the property.  Those lease incentives will be impacted by market conditions, other properties, vacancy rates, and current business sentiment.  The lease incentives offered to a new tenant will be different and larger than those offered to a sitting tenant considering a new lease in situ.

So these factors will give you a good start to solve the leasing challenge in the property.  Get the facts together before you start lease marketing and property inspections.