I’ve been posting this blog for well over a year now, and I’d like to think we give readers a good heads-up on trends in the property lease market, as well as some insights into how the market works behind the scenes.

So it was interesting for me this week to take some of this expertise into the mainstream news media as a commentator on TVNZ’s business programme: NZI Business June 5: Renters’ market for office space

The focus of the item confirmed what I have been saying for some time that the combination of people increasingly working away from the office, coupled with recessionary times, is reducing office space needs and leading to big rises in vacancies. The result is a tenant’s market.

While that is all well and good, it was interesting to note too the programme’s focus on the prime end of the market, and the example in the item of vacant space in the National Bank Tower in Queen St.

The reality is that while this sort of office space is vacant, the vast majority of commercial space leased is not in A or Prime category office buildings. There are always essentially limited opportunities in the CBD prime category office buildings.

I think it’s important to recognise this, as while we might all aspire to a Queen Street address or prime CBD tower block, this is not always going to be in our best interests; either financially, or in terms of business growth, development and staff retention.

I was reading a great article from a Fortune magazine journalist who talked about how recessionary times are stress-testing for businesses, and how in reality the recession is part of a long economic cycle. It said while this time round the downturn has been particularly pervasive, we will climb out of it.

Now when we are being stress-tested we need to more than ever consider where our focus lies to secure the best deals and outcomes.

This article and the comments on the NZI Business programme reconfirmed to me the importance of what I might call three dimensional thinking, about looking for new angles and opportunities.

These could lie where we least expect them, in negotiating flexible terms and conditions that will benefit both landlord and tenant, through to reassessing our business strategies to take a creative and outside-the-square look at our space needs and locations.

In toughened economic times smart people start shifting their focus, reminding me of the old adage:

“The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist thinks its going to change, and the realist sets the sails.”

Tags: commercial property lease, commercial property leasing, downsizing, landlord negotiations, lease negotiating, lease negotiation, office space, property lease negotiating, Property Lease Negotiation, Property Leasing, recession property strategies, tenant & landlord negotiations, vacancy rates

This entry was posted on Tuesday 9th June 2009 and is filed under Recession Strategies. Both comments and pings are currently closed.