Three Ways You Can Streamline the Lease Negotiation Process, According to VTS
With every new building that rises, there are spaces that need to be leased. And even with proper canvasing, a smart marketing plan and broker events, you need some way to make sure the tours are scheduled and the leasing process goes as quickly and smoothly as possible.
That's why VTS and Head of Sales Andrew Flint (pictured, right, with Liberty SBF managing director Alex Prombaum) created a comprehensive list of the three best steps you can take to expedite the leasing process and how a CRE platform like VTS can help. If you want to get simple, game changing leasing insight from the fasting-growing leasing platform in the world, check out VTS's white paper here.
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1) Prep the Space to Show
Why You Need To Do It: Before you consider showing the space, make sure it's prepped for viewing, so the tenant can imagine what they look like in the space and how they could grow and expand during their lease. “You have to make it easy for prospective tenants to envision themselves within the space and the building," Andrew says.
What You Need To Do: Not only do you need to clean the space (which Andrew insists is "a must"), remove clutter and paint the walls, but you may also need to consider more dramatic steps like demolishing existing installation that is in poor condition or doesn't fit the needs of a new tenant.
How VTS Can Help: By tracking and analyzing your building's history and leasing activity, VTS can help you identify tenants who would be interested in your space and decide what changes you need to make to appeal to them. You can even build out the space on a speculative basis, delivering new, high-end installations to the market and making marketing the space easier and quicker. You can also use VTS to create easily accessible floor plans of the existing installation and test fits of how your tenant would want to work.
Part 2: Engage the Tenant During the Tour
Why You Need To Do It: To put it simply, it's not enough to show a space to a prospective tenant. If not engaged or given a unique tour, a client won't be able to realize how a space perfectly fits their needs.
What You Need To Do: To truly make sure a tenant is engaged, you'll need to ask them what they're looking for, the number of employees they have, how they work and interact with each other, what neighborhood amenities they need, and what kind of layout they envision. This not only helps you tailor the tour to a tenant's needs, but also helps when negotiating the deal. So while the tenant is talking, you should be gathering the important information on them that you can reference in the future.
How VTS Can Help: With VTS, you can easily log and access information about tenants—such as key contacts, current location and comp—on your mobile device so it can be pulled up during future conversations. With these profiles, you can have a full tool set of metrics and information that can help you effectively engage and negotiate. With so many options and a powerful and accessible platform, VTS can help "mitigate the risk of you losing that tenant because you did not show them the right thing.” Does a tenant not like a space's size or layout? Just pull out your phone and show them a video tour that meets all their qualifications. But VTS can also be used to leverage the momentum of a successful building to increase rents or reduce concessions.
Part 3: Close the Deal with VTS
Why You Need To Do It: Today's lease proposals can go back and forth between tenants and ownership multiple times, wasting weeks or even months trying to land a deal that can eventually fall apart. To make sure a deal can go through quickly and without tension, you need to streamline the negotiation process as much as possible.
What You Can Do And How VTS Can Help: VTS can track budgets, the deal's basic terms and more, which can help develop a financial analysis within minutes. With such a quick turnaround, you can respond to tenants' proposals and reduce the chances of your tenant finding an alternative space. Andrew says that VTS can also help you know the key points to focus on to negotiate the deal, taking a tenant's initial proposal core metrics, comparing them to your leasing assumptions and forming the benchmark for the negotiation.
At the end of the day, Andrew says, VTS can help you use real-time analysis to identify trends before your competition, helping you lead, not follow, the market.
