Searching for a retail space

One of the first steps to leasing a location is actually finding one that suits your business needs. In this post I will talk about the ways you can search for a suitable retail space and provide some tips on spotting locations others may miss.

Surveying your area of interest

Of course one the first steps most people will take is to get in the car and spend some time canvassing the area of interest for your new retail location. While canvasing the area you should be looking for "for rent" signs on mall lawns or above spaces and locations that look vacant or have their windows covered with paper. It is important that you note not only the number to call for the vacancy but the name of the management company as well, this will be useful to help you search for a space once canvassing is done.

It is important to realise that even if you do not see a vacant space it does not mean there isn't one that will be available shortly. Usually a Lease requires you to notify the Landlord many months in advance if you will not be renewing, so most proactive landlords will put up a sign and start trying to lease the space long before it is actually empty. If you see a for rent sign at a property with no vacancies call them anyways, its there for a reason.

Online Search

This is of course a logical option and can be useful but if you use this method exclusively you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. While you can get many leads for spaces with a small amount of time invested by looking through online commercial real estate listings, it is important to note that not all spaces get listed on the Internet. While many landlords and management companies are tech savvy, there is still a huge amount of them that are not and do things "old school". That means they use "for rent" signs and commercial real estate brokers to market a space.

While doing your online search for a space do not rely strictly on real estate listing sites. Those names of management companies you wrote down while canvassing will come in handy at this point, as most of them have company websites that list what spaces they have available to lease. This is very useful as you may find many spaces that are not listed on a multiple listings type website.

Commercial real estate brokers

Brokers can be a huge help in finding a location for you. Brokers have many tools at their disposal but also many brokers get notified by landlords/management companies they have a relationship with, as soon as a space becomes available and due to that can have some great leads for you.

Using brokers to find and lease a location for you can have many advantages but whether you want to go down that path or not bears some thought because this can on occasion be a liability too. The fact that commercial real estate brokers have their commission tied to you signing a lease deal for the space, they can be too eager to have you sign or provide advice that may not always be to your benefit just so they can close a deal. Like in home buying you will find good honest brokers that truly care about their clients and hacks that only care to close a deal and move on, so reputation and good referrals are critical in choosing to go with a broker.

Contacting management companies and landlords directly

Many property management firms and landlords are huge and have portfolios consisting of millions of square feet in commercial real estate. It is often useful to contact their leasing agents directly and tell them what your needs are, odds are they may have a space for you.

A good idea would be to call the leasing agents of the companies you wrote down while canvassing your area of interest. Chances are they have many more retail spaces in the area and may have something that suits your needs that you missed.


Important Note

When you are looking at spaces do not immediately eliminate a location if it a lot bigger then you need, because if the deal is good enough the landlord may be interested in splitting a space for you. I have seen this done many times and this option becomes much more viable if you are looking for a long term lease or at a premium location with very high rents. In essence if the potential lease deal is worth a lot of money, the cost of splitting up a larger space may be quite worth it to get you in as a tenant.



This concludes the section for searching. Next up, tips on what to look and look out for in a retail location you may be considering.