What to Do When You Can’t Lease Space

I have a shopping center that sits right outside of the Sawgrass Mills Mall in Sunrise, Florida. I bought it from a note from Bank of America eight years ago. I immediately filled it from 50% to 92%. Should have sold it, but didn’t, and then lost Sears Appliance, Vision Works, and a sub guy. 

I was down to 72% leased and I could NOT lease it: 

I did a broker party. 

I did MeMail blasts. You know? Email blasts that’s all about you. Don’t do that. 

I did extra commissions. 

I canvased, canvased, canvased more than I’ve ever canvased in my life.

After a year of no leasing, I was listening to some motivation book and it said, “Insanity is doing something again and again and expecting a different result.” 

The book was saying, “What in your life bothers you and what are you doing about it?” 

What bothered me was that I couldn’t lease Sawgrass Commons. 

What was I doing about it? The same thing over and over. 

I then thought about hiring someone to lease my shopping center.  But how would that look? I’m supposed to be the leasing queen. 

I hired a firm I thought would be good and I did a video about it. 

Sometimes you have to change the players. For me, at that moment, I was not the right player so I outsourced it. We put it on video. All of these people were like, “You’re crazy. This is like you’re not going to be able to do anything.” 

Guess what? He signed the first lease a month ago. I hadn’t signed a lease in a year.

It took him four or five months. It takes four to five months for a leasing agent to get something going. You can’t hire someone and think they’re going to do something in a month. It takes time for them to get their arms around the asset, the vacancies, and the market. 

Four to five months. 

He just hit his four-month mark and signed a lease. 

Sometimes, if you have an agent on an asset and things aren’t happening and you’ve given them a year–which I know is a long time especially if it’s the last 10 or 15% because that’s where all the juice is–change it up. Change up the players. I did it and I’m so excited. 

I had to have the integrity to my partners and not my ego and not my reputation. 

LEARN MORE:

8 Things To Do Before and While Canvassing

Two Words to Never Use When Leasing Space

Retail Leasing 101: Market Studies

How Do You Compete Against Much Lower Rent

Patience vs. Speed: A Lesson from Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone