Tenant vacancies can put a significant financial strain on property owners.
Whether you’re a brokerage specializing in landlord representation for retail, offices, industrial, or more, you’ll want to help your clients fill their vacancies quickly.
Considering the fierce competition in these markets, it’s becoming more and more challenging for properties to stand out as an attraction to high-quality tenants.
Modern geographic information systems (GIS) tailored to the commercial real estate (CRE) market, like AlphaMap, help brokers to position their clients’ properties in the best possible light, while also making the process of gathering ideal tenant profiles quick and efficient.
By leveraging advanced analytics and real-time data, AlphaMap provides insights that can give your landlord representation services the edge.
In this guide, we’ll show you six ways you can make the most of the AlphaMap tool in your brokerage to secure top tenants for your clients.
The Importance of Landlord Representation
Landlord representation involves acting on behalf of property owners to market their properties, negotiate with potential tenants, and manage lease agreements.
If you’ve been in this game for a while you’ll know that done well, landlord representation can maximize the value of a property by securing high-quality tenants and achieving favorable lease terms.
You’re a strategic marketer, a shrewd negotiator, and a hawk-eyed inspector (of both tenants and properties). But wearing many hats is challenging, especially when you often need to fill a vacancy by finding a good tenant quickly. High-quality tenants often look for properties that offer not just the right physical characteristics but also the right location, amenities, and lease terms.
We’ll look next a how the right GIS tool can help you find those tenants more easily.
Addressing High Vacancy Rates in the Office Sector With GIS
Vacancy rates in the office sector are particularly high due to significant changes in working styles over recent years, including the rise of remote and hybrid work models.
As of May 2024, the national office vacancy rates stood at 17.8%, emphasizing the need for effective strategies to fill vacant spaces. If you’re a landlord representation broker in the office sector, doubling down on your GIS strategy is now more important than ever.
6 Ways to Level Up Your Landlord Representation Services with AlphaMap
1. Market Research Using GIS Analytics
Staying up to date with market trends is important as it will help you not only attract the right kinds of tenants, but also set competitive lease rates. Typically researching market trends will give you insight into:
- Areas of growth
- Shifts in tenant demand
- Emerging opportunities
AlphaMap uses advanced GIS analytics to offer real-time data on demographic changes, economic trends, and competitor activities.
You can use AlphaMap to:
- Analyze population demographics such as growth, income levels, and business activities
- Run a trade area analysis for client to assess where their ideal tenants and customers might come from
- Study foot and car traffic to the location
- Compare the performance of a business in a specific location against similar types of businesses and locations
- Spy on competitors’ foot traffic stats
All the above will give you a comprehensive overview of the factors influencing your clients’ properties. You can then make strategic decisions informed by actual data instead of guesswork.
2. Find Perfect Match Tenants Using TenantFinder™
TenantFinder™ is one of AlphaMap’s stand-out features that leverages GIS data analytics to identify the best-fit tenants for a specific property.
The tool uses sophisticated algorithms to match tenant profiles with property characteristics, ensuring a high compatibility rate between the tenant and the property.
Our database has over 100 000 brands from national retailers to mom-and-pop shops, which includes extensive contact information.
Our brand matching algorithms identify which brands would create the most synergy with your client’s property, allowing them to be laser-focused with their retail strategy.
Other distinct features of the TenantFinder tool include:
- Accessing tenants across all property types
- Sorting by business categories
- Ranking the ‘brand synergy match’
- Ranking the demographic match
- Revealing the number and location of stores locally and nationally
- Showing average store size
In essence, TenantFinder helps brokers to curate a tenant mix that complements existing tenants and caters to the target market demographics.
For example, pairing a fitness center with health food stores and wellness services can create a health-focused hub that attracts a specific demographic.
The best part is you can search TenantFinder for multiple properties which makes it a useful tool for studying competitors too!
3. Conduct a Void Analysis for Clients
AlphaMap allows brokers to conduct a void analysis by identifying gaps in the local market where certain goods or services are underrepresented. Inside the tool you can analyze trade areas and foot traffic in different locations.
Our real-time foot traffic data is aggregated from over 100 million mobile devices across the US.
Use TenantFinder for a powered-up void analysis which allows you to access a plethora of competitor data. You can also use the ‘Shopping Center Overview’ feature to study the foot traffic of all the tenants in one specific retail mall.
Tenants are ranked in terms of foot traffic volume compared to city, state, and national competitors. This information allows you to get extremely granular with your research. The result is a powerful, data-backed retail strategy for your clients.
4. Reduce Vacancy Rates and Time on Market
Here is where TenantFinder shines once again! You simply type in a location and TenantFinder automatically sources and matches the best possible tenants for your property from our large tenant database. It’s a quick and simple process powered by advanced algorithms that do the work for you in a matter of seconds.
By automating the tenant search process, you save valuable time that would otherwise be spent on manual research, listings, and marketing efforts.
This frees you up for high-impact activities, such as lease negotiations and relationship building with potential tenants.
Better still, TenderFinder’s efficiency results in faster lease agreements, reducing the time a property spends on the market. The long-term value is clear: Tenants well suited to a property are more likely to renew their leases resulting in stable income for landlords. Tenants that are thriving in a particular location are more likely to result in higher rental yields.
5. Make Decisions Using Real-Time Data
A data-driven approach to property leasing is more likely to yield successful results because you are no longer relying on intelligent guesses. While every CRE broker knows that intuition is a vital asset, it cannot outpace the competition on its own.
Having access to real-time market data and location insights, provides an edge for even the most experienced broker out there.
For example, say you have a client who owns a large office building in a metropolitan area struggling with high vacancy rates. You study AlphaMap’s location data to uncover a growing demand for coworking spaces among freelancers and startups in the area. The property’s leasing strategy is adjusted to offer flexible lease terms and some traditional office spaces are converted into coworking spaces.
The new spaces are quickly leased, attracting a steady stream of freelancers and small businesses. Due to the higher occupancy rate, your client’s rental income stabilizes.
6. Streamline Communication and Marketing Efforts
AlphaMap’s report-building features facilitate easy interaction with prospective tenants. Key features to streamline your communication and marketing efforts include:
- Visual reports: Visual, interactive maps and graphs help to make complex data points easy to understand. You can also integrate data from other sources such as your property management system or marketing platform.
- Property marketing: Access detailed property records, helping you highlight the unique selling features of each property. Demographic data simplifies the process of defining ideal target markets, ensuring marketing efforts are precise and impactful.
- Enhanced negotiations: Enter negotiations with confidence, armed with the latest data.
- On-the-go access: Our handy mobile app makes viewing location insights while on the move a new possibility.
Final Thoughts on the Importance of Landlord Representation
While most landlord representation brokers aspire to serve their clients with excellence, GIS analytics can give you a special advantage that significantly enhances your ability to attract and secure high-quality tenants for your clients’ properties, no matter the sector.
Thereby maximizing property value, minimizing vacancies, and ensuring a stable CRE income stream.
The future of landlord representation is likely to be data-driven and technology-enabled.
Embracing AlphaMap and all its powerful features could be your first step toward that future, setting you apart in the competitive landscape and ensuring you deliver exceptional service to your clients.
Why not book a demo with our friendly team today to see firsthand how AlphaMap can transform your approach to property management and tenant acquisition?
