5 Ways Landlords Can Help Clients Navigate COVID-19
As an owner/landlord, times of casualty and market fluctuations are your biggest concern. The uncertainty can derail your underwriting and cause a longer hold time or a complete miss on the underwriting assumptions altogether.
Questions going through your mind include:
- How will you get the space leased and collect rent?
- What are your remedies as an owner?
- What expenses can you reduce?
- Is your leasing team working and continuing to show spaces?
- Does your team have a plan to get you through the rest of the year and beyond?
The answers to these questions will tell you if you have the right team at the helm for your asset.
When evaluating the solution, it’s not how expensive the guitar is, it’s how you play it. Then there are ancillary factors – the right tuning, strings and strum pattern. Leasing and management teams may be perceived to make the same music, but underneath the surface there’s vast differentiators between who is a true fiducial partner and who’s just adding another asset to the already sizable pool that is strained.
How you differentiate yourself to play together and get the most out of your team for the owner is what matters. Keeping these factors in mind will help you prepare for the tenant of tomorrow.
- Share your experience and success
In today’s market, experience and past success go a long way. These two factors can become a brand’s greatest assets. If you’ve exceled through different cycles in the market, make sure your client knows how you creatively approached each obstacle.
- Focus on a team mentality
Establish a professionally integrated leasing, marketing, management and ownership team that is in sync and aware of what it takes to successfully lease in this market. This presents a lasting impression to the brokerage and tenant community. Creative solutions that stand out, energy that differentiates, real world examples and experienced guidance from industry leaders is the answer. Having a team in place, from senior partners to junior interns, rowing in the same direction for each owner every day, brings value.
- Competitive prospecting
It’s crucial to focus on aggressive engagement to find tenants. Work on acquiring a list of targeted prospects and identifying tenants currently in the market, then develop a priority call list. Don’t stop there; continue your efforts to pursue contacts with those companies.
- Strategic marketing
Create a plan to put your client’s property in front of the right people through creative marketing efforts. Utilize any in-house marketing you have access to and integrate digital materials to sell the story of each property. Collateral includes messaging, ad campaigns, digital media, targeted strategy, social media, press releases and media coverage. It’s crucial to be ahead of the curve on technology since prospects are conducting their initial searches digitally.
- Stabilized ownership outlook
Create teams of 10-15 people from leasing agents to brand recognition experts. Each person will play an important role, have expertise in a specific area and best of all, share a vested interest. The energy behind the effort can be vast, and thus the success of orchestrating the “music” behind it. Rehearse to refine the sound until all parts work perfectly in harmony for each assignment. Utilize technology-based solutions that track real prospects for ownership, give your continuous feedback, provide PR coverage and implement door-to-door prospecting. Add to that a research team that digs into leads not typically found, then string it all together with the most advanced marketing techniques found to date. All of this gives you a defensible hire for your investors.
When you approach each client’s situation with the big picture in mind and focus on these key factors, you can set your client up to win – even during uncertain times.
Written by Chris Lewis, Managing Principal.