The #CRE Road Ahead
Robert McComb
Commercial Real Estate Educator, Trainer, and Coach to CRE Brokerage Owners, Player/coach managers & experienced agents
My Top Dogs C.R.E. training customers, my coaching clients and others have been asking me what I think the road ahead will be like. Having been through the see-through-building era of the S&L crisis, the ‘Stay alive ‘til 95 recession’, the dot.com boom and bust, the post 911 crush, and the great recession, I will say that your C.R.E. brokerage services and abilities will be in very high demand shortly. As painful as the current realities may be, once the country gets back to work you will be needed more than any time in recent memory.
Why? Because there will be businesses that fail or barely survive, and others that will thrive. In the leasing arena that means increased vacancies, subleases, relocations and renegotiations on behalf of both property owners and tenants. Vacated spaces and sublease listings will need brokers to help them. Owner occupied properties may need to be sold, either as conventional sales or sale leasebacks. Investors who own properties will need brokers to help them mitigate losses from defaults, and some may just want to cash out their investments entirely. Bank REO departments may be forced to take back some properties. These are just a few scenarios.
One of my mentors said, “Brokers are paid in proportion to the problems that solve for clients.” Now is the time to prepare for the road ahead. Certainly C.R.E. brokers need to get very knowledgeable about the stimulus packages now in effect, and future ones as well.
Fundamentally, commercial real estate is about the rights and obligations of the parties. Now, more than ever, brokers need to become savvy about them. While hunkered down in the woodshed is the time to sharpen your axe. Blend learning and new skills development with lots of conversations with past, present, and future clients and prospects. Get them talking to develop a greater understanding of their problems, and their rights and obligations to be able to serve their needs on the C.R.E. road ahead. Rest assured that you will be very busy in the near future.
Bob McComb
www.commercialrealestatetraining.com