Money for nothing

By James Crisp, Executive Director - Occupier Advisory
Tel: 0207 544 2229 Email: jcrisp@nbrealestate.co.uk

The chances are you view property as a necessary cost of doing business. Let's assume for the moment that you own the property you occupy or you have a favourable long term lease. In both cases the property represents an asset. How about if we then assume that you are a "fund manager" rather than being a "property manager". How would your view change?

Well for starters, you would be trying to maximise the yield on your asset. Right now, commercial property represents a poor short term capital investment, so as a fund manager you would be looking for other ways to improve the yield. If your property is primarily short leased office space, then the potential isn't great, but if you have a number of owned offices, industrial units or retail units, then there may be some lucrative options available to you.

There are plenty of opportunities to boost your income and you don't need to be creative.  Depending on a few qualification factors, there are a broad range of companies who will be only too willing to pay to make use of your property in a non-intrusive way. You may need to make an emotional detachment from your modus operandii, but that is a small price to pay for what could be significant returns.

The benefits

So what are the key revenue earners? Typically they range from match day car parking and car washes, to advertising and radio masts, to film shoots and concessions, switching areas for distribution operators and open or containerised storage. The revenues can be considerable – a recent client is expecting to earn in excess of £500,000 per annum, with no additional outlay. Clearly an opportunity to earn incremental revenues of this order will require a good deal of effort on your part, so if you haven’t taken advantage already it's probably for the very sound reasons that a) you're not a fund manager and b) this is not your core competence and you have other priorities.

The Pitfalls

We all become accustomed to dealing with companies that sit within our own sphere of reference and for most corporate property teams that is unlikely to include, for example, coffee shops or car wash concessionaires! These are specialist businesses that require an experienced approach to avoid the pitfalls. To be successful you need to do your research. Who are the main players? How do you get access? What is the best price? This all takes time and effort and when you've done all the work there is still no guarantee that your property will meet the requirements. You could end up wasting a lot of time and effort, so it is hardly surprising that this remains a largely untapped revenue opportunity; it goes into the "too difficult" box.

The Options

So what are the options? 

1) You could stick to the day job and do nothing. This is a rational option when you consider the additional effort and resource required to acquire and setup a suitable contract with a willing participant. No effort – no reward.

2) You could make the effort in the hope that you can make the match between your facilities and the needs of a suitable prospect. Major effort – some potential for reward; but no guarantee.

3) NB Real Estate can act on your behalf, assess the opportunity, source the market, negotiate and establish suitable contracts for incremental recurring revenues. No effort – high possibility of reward.

NB Real Estate has experience and expertise in this market. We assess your properties to ascertain their potential and then source suitable candidates who can benefit from the location, access and visibility that your property offers. We have been doing this successfully for a wide range of clients who get the benefit of an additional revenue stream, without the need for any additional effort, resource or risk.

We take care of everything; it really is "money for nothing".

We may be able to do the same for you and you have nothing to lose. If we cannot help you, we will shake hands and move on, but if we can be of assistance then you will be the winner. Why not have a chat? I'd be delighted to discuss the opportunities and options. I'm James Crisp and you can reach me on +44 (0)20 7544 2229 or email me at jcrisp@nbrealestate.co.uk.