Commercial real estate is a numbers driven business. Square feet, annual debt service, vacancy rates, operating expenses. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Because of this, many commercial real estate brokers focus on the bottom line – giving the purchaser the numbers ahead of everything else. For many commercial real estate consumers, this is what matters. Unlike their counterparts in the residential real estate world that are often driven by emotion, these buyers want to know “what’s it going to cost me?”
Reading through commercial real estate listings and viewing commercial real estate marketing materials, this is evident. But what if we took a step back and looked at it from a different angle?
While the numbers are important to a business owner and should never be neglected, some common sense marketing tips could boost your visibility and land more buyers for the property much faster. Sell the highlights of the property and the surrounding area. Is it luxury high rise condominiums? Sell the local shops and restaurants. Although the owner of the building might not think about the boutique down the street, his tenants are. While a business owner seeking an office space may only want to know what their operating costs are, their employees are going to care about what local restaurants are available to them on their lunch break. Paint a picture of what the owner’s employees will gain from the property and you can sell to their emotions just as much as their purse strings. Even though the numbers matter, many employers are now focusing on their employees’ experience so that they can retain them in a highly competitive world. Show them why they need this building over all the others. Show landlords why their tenants will want to stay for years, instead of one lease cycle.
By using language that evokes good emotions and stunning visuals that are pleasing to the eye, you can push your commercial real estate listings to the forefront of a buyer’s mind. While the numbers will always have to make sense to the buyer, going the extra mile in marketing can make the difference between two properties with few differences between them.
image courtesy of Oberheiden
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