If you are the landlord of an office building, chances are you have run into a few problems along the way. From marketing your building to negotiating with tenants, being a landlord can be a time-consuming and frustrating process to take on.
Luckily, landlord brokers (also known as “project leasing brokers” or “agency leasing brokers”) at leasing firms are there to assist landlords with these issues. Our experienced asset services team has outlined a few of the most common problems landlords face, and how the right landlord broker can help solve them.
In this article, we cover those common problems, including:
- Lack of leasing activity
- The property is performing below the market
- Not enough time to properly lease available space
1. My Property (or Space) Is Not Leasing
One of the most common issues faced by landlords is a property or space being left vacant for an extended period of time. When this happens, the landlord not only misses out on income from the space but has to spend time marketing the space and chasing leads that may not end in a signed lease.
Landlord brokers, on the other hand, are perfectly suited for tackling this issue head-on. Not only do they make a living from marketing available space and chasing leads, they also have the knowledge and resources to make that process as quick and painless as possible.
Landlord Brokers at Leasing Firms Have Connections
If a landlord broker has been active in a city for any reasonable period of time, they will likely have built relationships with other brokers active in the market. This is a huge benefit when it comes to leasing vacant space as those relationships can be leveraged to identify which tenants are in the market and whether their needs are in line with the space you have available.
Read Now: Interviewing Leasing Firms for Your Commercial Property? 5 Questions You Must Ask
A landlord experiencing difficulty identifying potential tenants and getting their calls returned from tenant representation brokers could see a major benefit from hiring a landlord broker. After all, people like working with the people they know, so why not hire someone who has already spent time building those connections?
Leasing Firms Have Access to Listing Sites
As with residential real estate, it is important to list available commercial space on major listing websites to advertise that it is available. By making the information public, the hope is to generate as much demand as possible from potential tenants.
However, listing sites for commercial real estate (CoStar, Loopnet, etc) can cost upwards of thousands of dollars per month for an account, making it unlikely that a landlord will be able to post available spaces on their own.
Landlord brokers, on the other hand, will almost always have access to these sites and be able to list your space for you. This ensures your space is being seen by as many eyes as possible, giving it the best chance to be leased within a reasonable time frame.
Landlord Brokers at Leasing Firms Are Experts at Marketing Space
In a competitive market with low vacancy like Austin, it takes a lot more than listing a space on a website to generate sufficient interest. However, most landlords do not have the time or the skill necessary to devote hours of time to creating fliers, press releases, floor plans, and more.
That is where a landlord broker can save the day once again.
Landlord brokers are experts at promoting space through marketing efforts, and many leasing firms have a team of marketing professionals on staff to create the collateral needed to lease space efficiently in a market like Austin. On top of the traditional fliers and emails used to promote space, leasing firms today are utilizing drone footage, content marketing, custom promotional campaigns and more to fit the needs of every property they represent.
Read Now: What Marketing Materials Should A Commercial Leasing Firm Provide?
When you hire a landlord broker, not only are you receiving their expertise but the expertise of their entire team as well.
2. My Property Is Performing Below the Market
The second most common problem many landlords face is having a property that doesn’t seem to be performing as well as other comparable buildings in the market. Whether it be a lower rental rate, more tenant turnover, or simply more vacancies, it can quickly become a point of frustration to feel that a building is not performing at its full potential.
Luckily, a landlord broker can help solve this problem on two fronts: research and leverage.
Leasing Firms Have Market Data At The Ready
For many leasing teams, market data is the backbone of their business. In order to achieve the best results for their clients, landlord brokers put a lot of time and effort into researching the market, uncovering trends, and identifying opportunities to pursue.
Want the latest Austin market information? Check out our latest Austin Office Market Report.
Through this research, landlord brokers can provide landlords with the most up-to-date information that can be used to bring a building up to par with its competition. If, for example, market data indicates that buildings with a certain type of amenity are receiving a higher rental rate, the landlord broker will be able to identify that trend and recommend that the amenity be added to the building in question. Market data can also give the landlord an idea of what other landlords in the area are charging for parking, whether they have limits on density, how many concessions are being offered, and more, all of which have an impact on a building’s performance.
Unless you want to devote your own time to collecting this information and pulling insights from it (which can be difficult considering much of this information can only be gathered through relationships with other brokers), it is highly recommended that you utilize the expertise of a landlord broker.
Landlord Brokers Are Experts at Creating Leverage
Along with the collection of research comes leverage. By having an understanding of how other buildings in the market are performing and what rate leases are being signed at, the landlord broker is able to use that information in the negotiation process.
While a landlord may be able to create similar leverage on their own, having a landlord broker on the team could only add additional leverage.
3. I Don’t Have Time to Lease My Property
Lastly, many problems that a landlord will face when leasing a property on their own come down to not having an adequate amount of time to devote to the property. Unless your full-time job is devoted to the management and leasing of your property, chances are that other activities demand your time, which will interfere with the necessary tasks of taking calls from potential tenants, touring available spaces, and more.
Hiring a landlord broker can take all of those activities off of your hands, leaving you free to devote time to other activities without having to worry about the leasing of your building is a time-consuming process.
Conclusion
As you can see, hiring a landlord broker can solve a multitude of problems for landlords, especially those not interested in devoting all of their attention to the leasing of their building.
If you would like to learn more about the services landlord brokers provide, reach out to our landlord team today.
