Here at Boxpod, we are continually working hard to help commercial unit landlords and tenants get together. A commercial unit plays an important role in a business, it is its home, part of its identity, and can have a massive impact on everything from the mental health of those working within the unit, to the speed at which products can be manufactured, or delivered to customers.
For commercial unit landlords, it is important that tenants are found as quickly as possible, to ensure that the unit is not sat empty for long, helping to ensure a better vacancy rate and return on investment (ROI) and that payments such as mortgages can be met.
The best way that you can help this to happen as a commercial landlord, is to improve the rentability of your commercial unit, by looking at some of the most common factors in what potential tenants are looking for. This way, you can ensure that you are ready to go, making the unit as attractive as possible, and showing its potential to prospective tenants. Having a commercial unit that is ready to be moved into is also essential to help win the tenant over another property.
Location
For many businesses, the location of the commercial unit is one of the most important factors in choosing a place to base themselves. This will depend on the business’s unique needs, and as a landlord, other than at first, when you bought the property, there is not too much that you can do about this.
Depending on what the commercial unit is being used for, businesses will be looking at factors such as transport links, local amenities, possible import/export options, and, increasingly, environmental factors such as flood risk.
As the landlord of a commercial unit, it is important to find properties that are likely to be attractive in terms of their location in order to get quick and financially valid rentals.
Adaptability
It is very useful for commercial unit landlords to have a property that is flexible in terms of design and layout. This not only gives you options when looking for your next tenants but also allows your tenants to ‘design’ the best space for them.
Making it easy for a business to make swift adaptations – such as having large, open plan areas where dividers can be put up, for example, can both make it easy for potential tenants to imagine their own set-up in the space, as well as actually implement it.
Flexibility in leases is also another area that can make a particular difference for businesses when they are looking for a commercial property. By being more flexible, as a landlord, you can widen your options in terms of tenants and look to attract a greater number of people.
Having said this, many businesses are now looking for additional amenities (often shared) such as gyms, bicycle parking, cafes, or breakout spaces, for example. This is, of course, more infrastructural, but will be seen as a positive by almost every business.
With this in mind, it is also important to remember that you will never be everything for everyone, and character and some solid infrastructure can also be what will make people choose yours over another commercial unit.
Tenant Well-Being
Staff well-being is vitally important for businesses in the world today, both in terms of productivity, but also in encouraging people to work for you in the first place – and stay working for you.
It is important that your commercial unit is set up properly to promote tenant well-being. This means ensuring that factors including having adequate heating and cooling systems, decent water, proper ventilation, and health and safety measures are all up-to-date and working properly.
Of course, there are laws and regulations relating to working conditions, but this should be seen to be the very minimum, and landlords find that units that put tenant welfare as one of the main priorities are amongst those that are most popular for rental. They are also the units that have tenants who stay for longer and pay the most rent.
Sustainability
One of the factors that comes up the most frequently when we look to find out what is important for businesses when they are looking to rent a commercial unit, is sustainability. This has been a factor that has risen in importance over the past few years as there have been greater incentives for businesses to become more eco-friendly, working towards net zero, as well as the financial benefits of reducing the amount spent on energy and general wastage.
Ensuring that a commercial unit has excellent energy efficiency ratings and making it easy for businesses to promote sustainability practices (sufficient space and availability of recycling, for example) can make a building much more attractive to prospective tenants as well as demand a higher price in terms of rent. Some commercial units with excellent green credentials can earn up to 15% more than others without them.
Being certified by accreditation schemes such as WELL and BREEAM (as well as having the necessary EPC rating) are great ways to show potential tenants at a glance just how much you have done – and are doing – to boost sustainability in your commercial unit.
The Future
Of course, we can never be sure what is going to happen in the future, but the trends that we are seeing when it comes to the rentability of commercial units are looking to continue as flexibility and adaptability, sustainability, and location.
If you have a commercial unit that you are looking to rent out to tenants, take a look at our website to see how we can help. Or, if you are a business looking for a new commercial unit to home yourself, why not have a look through the properties that we have available to you today?