Negotiation

Sales and Leases

Should you hire a broker to negotiate your lease renewal?

Some Landlords believe they can renew their Tenants at the same rental rate that a Broker is able to negotiate.

Alternatively, Tenants often believe they can do a good job representing themselves in their renewal.

Whether a Landlord or a Tenant, your commercial real estate representative can make a solid case why you should contract an experienced broker to represent you.

I am not referring to dual agency but rather single agency where a Broker would represent either a Tenant or a Landlord.

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In the News

Does Saskatoon want or need Farmers’ Market six days a week?

The City of Saskatoon has officially put out a tender to lease the Farmers’ Market building in Riversdale.

At current, the facility is leased to and operated by the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market Co-operative Ltd.

In their original agreement to lease the property, they outlined their plans to expand the market hours over time.

That vision has only grown to three advertised full market days. The City is ready to let someone else take a run at it.

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In the News

More visits than residents, Remai Modern enjoys successful freshman year

Say what you like about it but over 450,000 people fed their curiosity and took in Saskatoon’s new public art gallery this past year.

That’s more people than encompasses the proper City of Saskatoon population.

More astonishing is that the Remai Modern was only projecting around 190,000 visits during their inaugural year.

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Market

What is the Relationship Between Cap Rates & Interest Rates?

Earlier this week, I forwarded a client some historical data on Saskatoon commercial real estate capitalization rates. He came back to me with the comment, “Would be interesting how it (cap rate information) trends with interest rates.”

Sophisticated investors absorb data to make informed investment decisions. I asked our Market Analyst to gather the information. Here’s my observations because of that research.

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Sales and Leases

What’s ideal amount to invest in Commercial Real Estate?

For the purpose of this conversation, let’s assume you are sitting on cash or liquid asset(s) and have decided to invest a portion of your available capital into commercial real estate.

What factors need to be considered to make a prudent investment decision?

I wrote about the advantages of partnerships, but let’s say the idea of a partnership does not interest you.

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ABC's of Leasing

1,000 lease changes later

Receiving that first response from a Tenant we’ve not encountered before, after waiting for their review of a lease, it is always interesting.

We represent both Tenants and Landlords; this article has been written from the perspective that I am representing the Landlord.

At times the Tenant is prepared to execute the document “as is” and at times they will request hundreds or more of changes. We have seen request that number exceed 1,000 changes.

We know all commercial real estate leases are written with a bias towards the Landlord, but what are the main reasons that Tenants object to the document?

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Market

Prime retail space elusive in Saskatoon

One of my biggest challenges is being unable to find the right fit for tenants. In a commercial landscape that remains under-serviced for retail it’s not exactly my fault.

We did see some new construction of retail in 2018, so it’s probably time to revaluate where the inventory levels sit versus vacancy, midway to the end of the third quarter of 2018.

Looking at the numbers by area, who do you ask: landlords or tenants?

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Sales and Leases

Communication Technology: Still Incapable of Replacing In-Person Meeting

Today’s communication tools include email, voicemail, social media, text and electronic messaging services, video and audio conference calls and more recently, telepresence robots.

All of these can be useful, however there are times when they just cannot replace a “belly to belly” meeting.

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Sales and Leases

Sometimes you’ve got spend a little to make a little (or a lot more)

In commercial real estate there can often be a variety of uses for a building depending on the zoning it sits on.

When a tenant vacates a space it can be difficult to anticipate who might backfill them based on the uses the property is best suited for.

So how do landlords decide if they should and shouldn’t spend money on a vacancy in order to get it leased up?

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Market

Saskatoon industrial market in recovery mode

These are rare times when what appears to be a negative economic indicator is actually a necessary painful step in the road to recovery.

Times when a story can be framed negatively or positively when viewed through the lens of reality.

Here’s the thing, the latest Marquis Industrial Building Permit Map issued by the City of Saskatoon on July 3, 2018 states there have been no industrial building permits issued in 2018 (within the Marquis Industrial area).

On the surface, that’s a hard pill to swallow!

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