Commercial Real Estate for Lease

Vintage Clothing is something that has become synonymous with up and coming trendy neighborhoods. When I worked in the East Village of New York City in 2004 there were at least two or three on every block. However not all vintage stores are created equal. While some offer timeless throwbacks to past decades others are little more than a garage sale. Today Racked LA listed the top 24 vintage stores in Los Angeles and House of Vintage placed number 6 and the highest in Downtown Los Angeles. Owner Felicity Rathbone has cultivated a collection including names like DVF, Oscar De La Renta, and Versace that spans the 1920's to the 1990's. Her success has caused her to outgrow her current location so there is now an opportunity to take over the existing location as House of Vintage relocates. The location is being marketed for sale by Ms. Rathbone including all existing furniture and fixtures. The name and inventory are not included but it offers a chance for a turnkey ready to open operation in Downtown's Historic Core. If you would like more information please visit DTLARealEstate.com.

As a commercial real estate broker in Downtown LA, I talk to commercial owners and managers of property in Downtown Los Angeles all the time.  When an owner has a vacant space and wants to work with me I see my role as getting their property leased within 90 days.  If I show it to five qualified people and they do not lease, there’s something wrong funky with one of the 5 causes.  As I wrote in a previous blog entry, there’s 5 things that cause space to get leased.  The biggest one of these 5 causes for properties in gentrifying areas of Downtown LA is often not price. Typically, the issue is lack of value which relates to many things including style, safety, and simplicity.  If you own commercial real estate in Downtown LA in a transitioning/gentrifying area and you follow the recommendations in this article, you will make more money from your property than you can imagine.  Your return on investment in this market will be far better by improving value over lowering price. To recap, here’s those 5 causes that cause properties to get leased.  One, marketing exposure.  Two, time.  Three, adding value.  Four, lowering price.  And five, improving sales presentation.  For me, marketing is never the problem.  If it’s in Downtown LA I can market their property more than anyone else can in Downtown LA.  Time?  No one has time.  Sales?  Most of the time spaces lease themselves, but a sales person does make a difference, and I’m not a bad salesman.  These typically have not been an issue.  Price?  Price has not been the problem.  People in Los Angeles can afford very high rents.  The most common problem I see that keeps properties in gentrifying areas of Downtown LA from leasing is lack of value in terms of style, safety, and simplicity for potential tenants.  If you want gentrified tenants for you un-gentrified property, this is what you need to know. Business owners are looking for value!  They educate themselves.  They look around at different spaces and get a gauge on what’s available for what.  They pay attention to details and compare those details.  Also, business owners have minimal standards!  You can have a crappy building for $.25 a square foot, and still no self-respecting business owner is going to want to relocate their business there. So yes, the problem is value! Business owners care about their image just like they care about what kind of clothes they wear.  Does the property have a style that you can argue for aesthetically?  For gentrifying properties, creative companies are the most likely tenants.  Yes, people like shabby warehouses, but if they are the type that’s willing to pay $5000 a month for a creative office space or retail space in Downtown Los Angeles, they are going to need the space to be crisp, clean, and polished.  The key is to make the property stylish, make it cool, make it what business owners would want to align their image with. Safety is also a spin-off of value.  Safety is a big concern, especially for people not familiar with Downtown Los Angeles.  People that live here feel comfortable, but some people are shocked simply by homeless people asking them for money.  Shocked and afraid! People who have not lived in the Historic Core for a while and find themselves among homeless people, the drug addicted, and/or the mentally ill members of Downtown LA, often freak out. I see it all the time.  Just because you might be use to these type of people, most other people are not. Regardless, for everyone, safety is important.  When you add exterior lighting, security cameras, and a security guard the safety concern is a lot less problematic.  If people are concerned about the safety of your property, they’re probably going to drive by it or walk around there at night to ease their concerns.  If it is pitched black around your building, they obviously are not going to feel safe! Also, business owners care about amenities.  Does the space have HVAC?  Is there a conference room in the common areas?  Are the bathrooms and common areas clean?  Does the exterior of the building look well kept?  Does the lobby give a good first impression?  Often times, it doesn’t matter how cheap the space is, a lot of people simply will not rent without certain things. Last but not least, and a spin-off on value, make the move in simple.  The less the tenant has to do to make the space work for them, the better.  If it’s not move in ready, you cannot show them it does indeed work for them.  Make your property safe, don’t tell people you can.  Make it convenient, don’t tell people you can. People are untrusting these days more than ever, especially in real estate. For instance, lots of gentrifying properties don’t have central HVAC.  Well there’s good news, there’s other options for AC.  Best case scenario, buy the portable AC’s or one of the other AC options out there.  Moreover, install it for them or maintenance!  You can charge them a monthly fee, like the Spring Arts Tower does.  Show them it cools the space down. Do not tell them they can buy the AC and it will cool the space down.  They will think, “Where will I buy an AC and how will I install it?  That sounds complicated. Gosh, that’s another thing to do and worry about.  Wait a second… oh shoot I just remembered I need to go pick up my kids from school.  Crap I think I left the curling iron on!”  Show them! People do not have time or patience.  Tenants will make the easy convenient choice because they have a hundred other things on their mind.  The money you’ll save from having the space leased and not vacant will definitely make you more money than doing the opposite. The most common thing I hear from owners of properties in transitioning areas is this: It’s okay, we can do those improvements once we find a tenant. NO! You need to make your property cool, not tell people you can make it cool. Also, creative people are surprisingly uncreative at times, when looking for Downtown LA real estate.  Also, most people want to move within 30 days.  If it’s going to take you three months to get the improvements done, the “I’ll make it cool” response, makes no sense in principle!  These people will have rented somewhere else by the time the owner is done with the improvements.  Also, since these tenants shop around, why would someone lease at your property that you tell them you’ll make it cool when someone down the street has made the property cool already and they could move in now if they wanted to? So to recap Within reason, price is often not the problem Know that your tenants care about            Style: their image Safety: they don’t want to worry about their employees getting robbed      and suing them or something worse People have minimal necessities no matter how low the price is Know that your potential tenants shop around Make the move-in simple for them They have enough to worry about Make the property an easy “no-worries” choice People are not trusting.  And creative people often are not creative. Make the property cool, don’t tell people you’ll make it cool My name is Donegan McCuaig.  If you’re looking to buy, sell, lease, or manage property in Downtown LA give dtlarealestate.com a call now.  Thank you!

If you're a real estate owner or experienced property manager, you already know these in one form or another, here’s my spin on these concepts.  It is useful to refresh these points in your mind.  There are five ways to increase rental activity for your commercial real estate in Downtown LA, and only five ways to increase rental activity in DTLA.  If you have a vacant space, the cause of the vacancy has something to do with one or more of these factors.  Do you have a vacant commercial space in DTLA?  Wouldn’t you like to be collecting the monthly rent on it?  Well, let’s see what we can do by going over these five factors! ADD VALUE · RENOVATIONS: Sometimes, it is hard to realize how your space looks to fresh eyes, someone seeing the space for the first time.  If your space shows poorly during a tour, this will be a factor in getting the space leased.  Also, the physical appearance of your property will affect the quality of the pictures you are able to get of your space.  When it comes to online advertising, your space is only as good as your photos of it. · BRANDING: Are you positioning your property to the tenants who make up the market for the greatest demand of your property?  Did you use to rely on sewing manufacturing tenants when now the greater demand and value is in creative office space?  Is the image of your space is projecting cool? · How dtlarealestate.com can help: I can consult with you to position your property in the best light possible for the greatest demand based on my knowledge and experience of the “gentrified type of tenant” coming into Downtown Los Angles. INCREASE EXPOSURE OF VACANT UNITS · Marketing is everything.  Is your space getting the most visibility it possibly can to the type of tenants that are most interested in your space? · How dtlarealestate.com can help: First of all, I can make your spaces look good with photography and video.  I have over 38,000 fans on Facebook at facebook.com/dtla4ever where I share photography, street art, and real estate in Downtown LA.  My website gets over a thousand visits per month.  You can Google “commercial real estate Downtown LA” and see how I get so many tenants calling me each day.  I honestly believe there is no one in the world that can give your commercial rental units any more marketing visibility than I can.  And personally, I’ve never seen anyone else come close to the photography and video that I do for my clients’ vacant spaces. REDUCE PRICE/RENT RATE · Self-explanatory. · How dtlarealestate.com can help: You don’t need me for this one. IMPROVE SALES SKILLS OF TOURING AGENT · The sales presentation a tenant receives extraordinarily affects whether they rent or not.  The methods employed when demonstrating the space and persuasion involved can mean the difference between making and breaking a deal. INVENT AND USE A TIME MACHINE · Last but not least, eventually, it might take two years, but someone is going to find out about your space, call you, agree to the rent rate, approve of your sales pitch, and rent your space at your asking price.  Hopefully, you don’t raise the rent rate during that two years time, because it might stay vacant forever! · How dtlarealestate.com can help: I’m a smart guy but I can’t build you a time machine.  You’re on your own with this one! The ways I can work with you (as a Downtown LA real estate broker and property manager) to get your vacant commercial spaces leased better than any other broker in the world are by helping you with adding value, increasing quality of your marketing materials, increasing the number of people exposed to your marketing materials, and being your sales representative.  If you’re interested, give us a call and we can talk about filling your building up with happy tenants!