The best real estate brokers will show you some locations BEFORE they have “for rent” or “for sale” signs on them. They may have had prior dealings with the local landowners and the broker should give them a call to see if space may be coming available in their center.

Or they may take the initiative of knocking on a few doors to try and manufacture a workable site for you and good real estate brokers always know their markets (as should you).

Although it should be up to you to take all photographs and notes concerning the locations that you do see, always request that any and all site submissions that your broker sends to you are in in a clear and concise format hopefully highlighting anything about the site that may have a positive or negative impact on your business.

If you wish, create your own worksheet or feel free to download a copy of our Location Checklist and give it to your broker. Chances are that they may roll their eyes at it, but this will at least ensure that all of the information supplied to you is consistent and complete.

Controlling this part of the process is very important and, in the end, will make your life, your search and your final decisions a bit easier.

If you choose to let the broker handle this for you, at the very least, every real estate site submission that they send you should contain the following information:

The actual physical address of the site (where you would send a letter to).

• The exact size and dimensions of the property (including any basement, mezzanine and/or exterior space, if any).
  
  
• The exact size and dimensions of the building or space.
  
  
• The total size of the shopping center - If applicable.
  
  
• Asking rent (Or, as we like to call it, “The Sticker Price”).
  
  
• The estimated real estate taxes.
  
  
• The estimated costs of all Common Area Maintenance Charges (CAM), insurance and any other pass-through, if applicable.
  
  
• The exact zoning of the parcel

And of course, it would be just swell if they included:

• A Demographic Report with relevant radius’.
  
  
• Traffic counts (With the date of when they were last taken).
  
  
• A recent accurate and legible site plan and/or a survey of the property.
  
  
• A list of competition in the immediate area.

If you had decided to follow the instructions in the market planning section of this site (and you really should have, by the way), you should already have a pretty good idea of where you want to focus your attention in the first place and what the estimated fair market value of the properties are in those areas.

The very last thing you need is for someone to drive you around all day, showing you an endless supply of “For Lease” signs. The only thing that the broker is going to try to do in this case is talk you into one of them.

With the dough that we mentioned at the beginning of this article, you can understand that they will put on their selling shoes to get you to bite at one of them. Be careful, many salespeople are very well versed at putting lipstick on a pig and calling it Miss America. Do your own work up front and tell them where you want to focus your search and what your budget is...then stick to it.

<Previous page . Next Page>

Next: The Alternatives