Some commercial spaces feel impossible to lease. Even the best commercial real estate brokers find themselves stumped by properties with obvious drawbacks that prospective tenants can’t seem to look beyond.
The good news is, many objections to commercial spaces are relatively easy to overcome. A little forethought and preparation can help your property lease quickly and for a higher rental rate. Here are four smart design tricks great commercial real estate brokers use to get around some of the most common leasing obstacles.
1. Building an Image
Tenants always consider what their office space says about their business. What is your building communicating? If it isn’t projecting the right image, prospective tenants who understand the importance of branding will run, not walk, away.
Old interiors tell lessees that the landlord doesn’t consistently maintain the property. In turn, they might wonder what their own customers will infer from a dated workspace. On the flip side, a space that feels modern and streamlined will resonate with potential tenants who see their own businesses in that same light.
2. Creating a Space Plan
There are a lot of ways to refer to this process but however you slice it, creating a “space plan” or “layout design” is critical to the marketability of a commercial space. Before putting a property on the market, ask whether the space has been optimized to the fullest. Does it encourage different types of work configurations through one-on-one meeting rooms, individual offices, and collaboration areas?
Once a space has been segmented, it’s also important that the distinctions between workspaces be made clear. Are there different visuals you can use to help a potential lessee imagine themselves in-action? Printed floor plans and effective staging are two of the best tools for this purpose.
3. Defining Amenities
Today’s workforce wants – and expects! – serious amenities. Your space should reflect that, especially if the rental rate you’re hoping to achieve is on the mid- to upper-tier of your market.
You should always find a way to include some sort of kitchen or breakroom within the space, but going a step further can help make your property memorable. Can you set up a comfortable area for people to eat away from their desks? Is there room for a specialty coffee bar? What about an unused conference room…could that become an on-site workout space?
4. Staging to Appeal
Staging is one of the most important tools short-sighted CRE brokers aren’t using. By encouraging a property owner to stage for the audience they hope to attract, you can decrease the time a property spends on the market and reduce the number of potential objections renters might have.
Great office staging allows lessees to envision their companies working and thriving within a space. It defines workstations, it creates flow, and it can minimize the impact of building features that simply can’t be changed. It’s one of the highest ROI activities a landlord can undertake before leasing a property.
Great workspaces create happy employees. Happy employees do better work, and all commercial tenants care about creating a productive environment. Mindful design is usually all that stands between an “un-leasable” property and an excited lessee.
Let’s talk about incorporating design to get your property rented quickly for top dollar.
Design Your Monday helps commercial real estate brokers, landlords, and business owners create functional, productive workplaces.