Tips to Negotiating Your Commercial Lease

Every business encounters expenses along the path towards success. One of the largest expenditures that can obligate the owner for years into the future involves your business location!

There are many things that can enter into the decision-making process as I've discovered from some of the experienced professionals with The Lease Coach.

Pro-Vision Solutions Inc. is very pleased to provide you with the following tips and suggestions from The Lease Coach, and look forward to future contributions for our audience. 

Thank you for sharing these very helpful things for our Business Success audience!


Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies

Commercial Leasing Tips for Commercial Tenants

By: Jeff Grandfield – The Lease Coach 

For many business-owners, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While an entrepreneur focuses on marketing and managing, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized sales people. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate. 

As explained in our new book, Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies (co-written with my colleague, Dale Willerton), tenants may go through the leasing process only two or three times in their entire lifetime – yet they have to negotiate against seasoned professionals who negotiate leases every day for a living. Negotiating appropriate leasing terms is vital for an entrepreneur as the amount of rent he pays will directly affect the business’ financial bottom line.

Whether you are leasing a new location for the first time or negotiating a lease renewal for your business, these are some money-saving tips for tenants:

Negotiate to Win: All too frequently, tenants enter into lease negotiations unprepared and do not even try winning the negotiations. Often, tenants will set their sights on just striking a fair deal – this usually plays right into the leasing agent’s hand as he is most certainly negotiating to win the best deal for his boss … the landlord. If you’re not negotiating to win, you won’t. Negotiate assertively!

Be Prepared to Walk Away: Try to set aside your emotions and make objective decisions. Whoever most needs to make a lease deal will give up the most concessions. A good business in a poor location will become a poor business.

Ask the Right Questions: Gathering information about what other tenants are paying for rent or what incentives they received will position you to get a better deal. Consider that your landlord and his agent know what every other tenant in the property is paying in rent, so you must do your homework too.

Broker … Friend or Foe?  Real estate agents and brokers typically work for the landlord who is paying their commission. It is not normally the agent`s role to get the tenant the best deal – it is their job to get the landlord the highest rent, the biggest deposit, etc. The higher the rent you pay, the more commission the agent earns. If you are researching multiple properties, try to deal directly with the listing agent for each property, rather than letting one agent show you around or show you another agent`s listing. Your tenancy is more desirable to the listing agent if he can avoid commission-splitting with other agents.

For a copy of our free CD, Leasing Do’s & Don’ts for Commercial Tenants, please e-mail your request to DaleWillerton@TheLeaseCoach.com.

Jeff Grandfield and Dale Willerton - The Lease Coach are Commercial Lease Consultants who work exclusively for tenants. Jeff and Dale are professional speakers and co-authors of Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies (Wiley, 2013). Got a leasing question? Need help with your new lease or renewal? Call 1-800-738-9202, e-mail DaleWillerton@TheLeaseCoach.com  or JeffGrandfield@TheLeaseCoach.com or visit www.TheLeaseCoach.com.

What are your comments or additional helpful suggestions for entrepreneurs? 

* Have you included your business location plans into your Business PLAN? 

     TIP: Pro-Vision Solutions Inc. can help you with that!


Let us know your thoughts and please share this with those in your circle of contacts!