Commercial classroom: Marketing commercial properties - by Edward Smith Jr.

This column is offered to help educate agents new to commercial and investment brokerage and serve as a review of basics for existing practitioners.

When you get a new listing, you need to create two marketing pieces, a teaser flyer and a brochure.

The teaser flyer is usually one page sent out to your client list and to other commercial brokers in the area. Effectively offering to co-broke with them if they have a buyer or tenant for that space. Also, it should be posted on as many web sites as possible and on all social media. The idea is to create interest in viewing the property.

All flyers need to include a picture of the building or space, location, zoning, useable square footage, price per s/f or purchase asking price and when the building or space will be available.

With office buildings include class A, B, or C, the number of stories and the overall square footage of the entire building, plus the loss factor being used. If leasing space within, what floor is the unit on, a floorplan of the space and what type of lease and length is being offered. Since office flyers require a lot of information, sometimes they need to be printed on both sides.

In the case of retail, what other tenants are in this shopping center and what other major stores are in the vicinity. It should also indicate the base rent per square foot any “additional rent” items tenants would need to pay for. Potential tenants will want to see a demographic chart showing population, household income, ages and traffic counts.

Industrial buildings need to define permitted uses, including ceiling height, the number of overhead doors, loading docks and/or tailboards. Plus, information on the types of heating systems, the amount of electrical power and the cost of the real estate taxes per square foot, which are typically paid by the tenant in these types of buildings.

Multi-family and investment properties also require the number of tenants, percentage of vacancy. The projected net operating income (NOI) for this year and the CAP rate used to develop the asking price. Who are the tenants and what each are paying in base rent and additional rent, when their leases start and will end and any options they may have. Sometimes landlords will not give this information initially or may require signing a non-discloser of confidentiality agreement first.

A client has inspected the property and is interested, we can’t just give them the same flyer at the end of the tour. When we take the listing, we must also create a detailed brochure for this purpose. This should be multiple pages with plenty of pictures, inside and outside and overviews of the area, including google maps of the location.

When the property is for sale buyers will focus on the age and condition of the building, elaborate on the age of the mechanical systems, heat, air conditioning, plumbing, elevators and the roof, specific pictures of these units should be included. Today’s hot topic is climate change, what are the level of carbon emissions produced by this building. Are they increasing or are they being reduced, if so how. It is also a good idea to include some comparable sales and similar properties on the market to justify the pricing.

When a lease is involved, tenants will be concerned with many of the same items that concern buyers, In addition the complete desired lease terms the landlord is looking for need to be disclosed, with enough detailed information that the potential tenant can make an offer.

The National Association of Realtors has provided it members with free tool to help then create their brochure called Realtors Property Resources www.narrpr.com. When you into the site you will see it has two separate sections for residential and commercial. The commercial side has literally 100s of thousands of properties, previously sold or leased and currently on the market.

To use the system brochure making capabilities you first need to enter your listing on either of their partner sites Brevias or CREXi, within a few days your listing will appear on the NARRPR site. Then you can create a customized report (your brochure). In addition to the material you provide, the system will include all available public records on this property. Legal description, size, lot, price per square foot, ownership history, assessed value, real estate tax history, mortgage information including financial details, maps, photos and traffic counts are all downloaded into your report.

In another section of the site, you can get a report analyzing the demographics of the property.

Once your teaser flyer and brochure have been created you are now ready to start your marketing.

Edward Smith Jr., CREI, ITI, CIC, GREEN. MICP, CNE, e-PRO and CIREC program developer, is a commercial and investment real estate instructor, author, licensed real estate broker, speaker, and a consultant to the trade.