Here's Part 3 of How to Choose the Right Corporate Real Estate Broker. If you missed the previous posts here's Choosing the Right Corporate Real Estate Broker Pt 1 and Choosing the Right Corporate Real Estate Broker Pt 2!
One of the most common dilemmas facing the corporate tenant is finding a broker that has no conflict of interest, although many companies do not even realize that this is a problem. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of brokers either work for a company that represents both tenants and landlords, or they, themselves represent both tenants and landlords. These brokers are telling the tenants they represent that they will get them cheapest prices for commercial real estate and then turning around and telling their landlord clients, that they will lock in the highest rates for their properties. That said, not all, and probably most don’t, make these 180° moves to woo their clients. But if your broker works in one office of a company and the agent representing a potential site of yours is just down the hall, it could be mighty tempting to keep that deal in-house. So ask yourself: how could you trust your broker to keep true to his or her word and focus on getting you, and only you the best deal possible? The answer is simple. You can’t, at least in most cases, anyway.
As a corporate tenant you want to a broker who is going to focus on you, a tenant representative. More to the point: a pure tenant representative. This really is the only way for you to know for sure that your broker is only interested in getting you the best deal. Another thing to keep in mind, tenant reps are often more adept to finding sites that suit the very specific needs of their clients, whereas brokers that handle both tenants and landlords typically do not have the same experience, nor the time to really dive into exactly what you may need.
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