Filling Your Vacant Space
There’s no doubt that the commercial real estate market has suffered in recent years. You don’t have to drive very far to see office buildings, retail shopping centers, and industrial complexes with high vacancies. Some would say that it is the result of our economic recession and part of a cycle that will eventually come back full circle to former good times. How long will that take? What will you do until then?
As a landlord, you know that many of your current tenants are struggling and that new tenants are hard to find. You may have resorted to offering extended periods of free rent to gain an edge over your competition that shares the same challenges. It’s a buyer’s market and you are caught in the middle of the supply and demand merry-go-round, trying to find the right balance between occupancy and rates. What can you do to fill your empty space with paying tenants and cover more of your ongoing operating expenses?
Our Unique Approach
Equitrade International, Inc. offers a way to overcome this dilemma. As an expert in the commercial barter industry, Equitrade can show you how to attract new quality tenants by adding a barter component to your commercial leases. In the last 30 years, commercial barter has evolved into an electronic banking system and is being used by large and small companies alike as a financial tool to solve the inherent problems that exist with excess capacity and excess inventories. Equitrade provides liquidity to barter and facilitates a transaction between willing parties where cash is in short supply.
How Barter Benefits Your Tenant
Attracting new tenants is easier when you add a barter component to a lease. Used effectively, it can sway a prospect to your property and can become an incentive to capture future cash flow as an introductory component to your lease in lieu of free rent. And, the reduced initial cost to your new tenant helps ensure their success and financial stability.
Barter makes it possible for businesses to expand because they are using their excess capacity and excess inventory to pay for their expansion. Your new tenant will supply Equitrade with gift certificates from their business each month as payment for the barter portion of their rent. Equitrade then sends your tenant new customers to redeem those gift certificates. You receive a corresponding credit each month in your barter account for your use.
How Barter Benefits You
Some of the many benefits of using barter in your leasing include:
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A barter tenant is better than no tenant. Commercial space for lease is time-sensitive and therefore perishable. Every day that goes by without a tenant is revenue lost forever.
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Barter tenants always pay cash for CAM expenses so more of your ongoing operating expenses will be covered.
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As a lease concession, it’s a better incentive than free rent because free rent generates no revenue.
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Success breeds success, and prospective tenants are attracted to properties that are vibrant and full of other successful businesses.
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Many of your regular operating expenses can be purchased using barter.
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With higher occupancy, you can both attract more cash-paying tenants and command a higher rate. Since lease terms are confidential, those subsequent cash-paying tenants will never know that you filled your excess vacancies with a barter component.
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When you use your barter credits for budgeted expense items, you conserve your cash.
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You have no incremental cost to leasing a new space therefore you have no cost in your barter dollar.
Using Your EQUITRADE Account
The principle of effective bartering is to use barter in lieu of spending cash which leaves budgeted cash in the bank. When barter is employed properly the barter lease revenue represents incremental profit.
Items that you may consider purchasing with your new barter account include:
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Property maintenance and improvement
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Promotion and marketing
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Real Estate commissions
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Real Estate acquisitions
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Travel and Entertainment
Barter As A Problem Solver
Do you have existing tenants that are delinquent with their lease payments? Let Equitrade show you how to use barter to cure a default and salvage a tenant relationship while preventing another vacancy.
Are any of your tenants struggling financially and have they approached you for a rent reduction? Equitrade can show you how to hold your rate by taking the reduction in barter for a period of time; giving you value and helping your tenant generate more sales while they get back on their feet.