Archives: Berger Bites

The 550 building features seven-story class A office space encompassing 95,532 Sq.Ft. Office suites range from 1,500 SF to full floors (13,136 sf floor plates). The property also features an on site 634 car parking garage with the highest available parking ratio available in Downtown Fort Lauderdale. Ground floor patio restaurant and retail opportunities are also available. Located adjacent to the new 700,000 SF Broward County Courthouse CBD location, yet away from congestion, providing ease of access to major transportation routes.
Song: Ship Wrek & Zookeepers – Ark [NCS Realease]

A quick intro to Berger Commercial Realty, and what we do.

There are many reasons a receiver is appointed, the most common of which is when a lender feels that their mortgage is in jeopardy and the property value is no longer great enough to satisfy their mortgage. Other reasons a receiver may by appointed would be partnership disputes, when people can’t agree on how to operate a property, or any time an interested party does not feel like they are being properly represented.

If you’re a tenant, you need a commercial real estate broker representing just you for several reasons. First, a landlord is more than likely going to have their own commercial real estate broker representing them, or they’re going to have significant experience negotiating commercial deals. If you don’t have a broker on your side, it’s not a level playing field and you’re at a significant disadvantage.

Second, when you hire a broker, you get the benefit of that broker’s market knowledge and experience. They can tell you which are good buildings, which are good landlords to work with, what’s a reasonable rate, where you should be when you come in with an offer, where you should settle, and will point out things that you may not think of because you don’t have the experience negotiating commercial contracts or commercial leases.

Third, the landlords have relationships with good brokers who are out in the market every day. They want to continue working with those brokers. They want to keep those brokers happy, so if you come in with a good broker, the landlord will likely want to do a good deal with them for their clients to keep them coming back with other clients.

Finally, you need to respect your own time. Unless you have the time to sit and learn the entire market and understand who’s going into foreclosure, who’s not, what the proper rates are, which buildings are functioning properly, which aren’t, things that I’ve spent time every day doing since 1999, you’re not going to be able to understand the market and negotiate as good a deal as an experienced commercial real estate broker.

I think the best way to select a commercial real estate broker is to look and see who has been the most active in that particular submarket. That can be by looking and seeing who has the most signs in the area. If I’m a landlord or if I’m a seller, who has the signs that are up that you can see, who is the professional looking group that handles the transactions in that particular submarket. You also want to see who has been quoted in the newspaper, who is in the common media, who has the experience that sounds like they know what they’re talking about when they’re talking to the press.

In addition, you’re going to want to look at their transaction record, and I would recommend interviewing two or three brokers at any one time and see which one you think is the best fit for you and your style of communication and your style of negotiation. Buying and selling real estate, it can be very a expensive and very costly proposition. You don’t want to go with somebody that maybe specializes mostly in residential real estate.

Also, I would talk to your attorney, talk to your banker, talk to your insurance agents. They may have had contact either through some space that they leased or through one of the trade associations, et cetera, and they may be able to make a good recommendation by word of mouth as to who you should talk to.

The tenants of a property pay for the property taxes at a commercial space. In general, they pay their proportionate share, which would be their percentage that they occupy of the building.

First of all I like to have a sit down meeting with the owner, face to face, in their place of business. That way you get an idea of the type of operation they run, the kind of square footage they have, the quality of the operation, and the location. Then you go through a needs assessment with that owner, and that way you have a face to face meeting, you’re able to quantify and help guide that guide that customer along in terms of his search for property, and really how the best you can help him as a broker.

Lease rates for commercial properties are generally quoted on a annual per square foot basis. If you’d like to find the monthly rent for that, you take the annual per square foot rate, times it by the total square footage for the space that you’re going to be leasing, and then you divide that by 12. That will give you your monthly rent.