Corporate Real Estate management aims to reduce costs and create revenue by increasingly sophisticated management that goes far beyond the old model of passive owning and renting.

The improved position of corporate tenants is illustrated by the CRE owners who are dying to become tenants themselves through sale-leaseback deals, even in the recent climate of tight credit and an uncertain picture on accounting rules.

For these companies, selling assets is a way to realize growth in value, increase cash balance, lower borrowing costs, ease operational restructuring and clear their books of assets that make them tempting takeover targets.

In an era when large corporations are renting computer software and storing BI data on an Internet cloud service, the idea of leasing instead of owning real estate is hardly shocking. Corporate properties are often designed for a particular use or business, and their use is most often constrained tightly by planning and zoning.

Often corporate properties are left high and dry by demographic changes in their communities. A good example is found in a conference the University of Michigan in 2009, which revealed that there are no supermarkets in the City of Detroit, except for the empty shells left by fleeing businesses.

One way tenants or owners can reduce costs is by attacking insurance costs. This can be done by tighter visitor management, fire and life safety training and by improving incident management. A recent white paper by an operations management firm cited a property manager using a sophisticated web-based management system reduced its general liability premium from $30.65 to $2.42 per 1,000 square feet over five years.

This same kind of corporate real estate management software is also useful in controlling energy maintenance and staffing costs.

Finally, don’t overlook the green building initiatives. The sustainability movement certifies building with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and a white paper by the Leonardo Academy comparing LEED-certified existing buildings with other building showed the LEED buildings total costs beat the conventional buildings 63 percent of the time. LEED building also get higher rents and have higher occupancy rates.