Negotiating the Lease on Your Gym

Over the past several years, vacancy rates in commercial spaces in many parts of the country were near 10%.  If you were to sign a lease at that time, you could get away with asking for pretty much anything you want; and the landlord, for fear of missing out on a quality tenant, would likely give you what you wanted without hesitation.

And though vacancy rates are now closer to 6% in many parts of the US, there are still great deals to be had…YOU just have to be willing to ask for a better deal.

I would guess that landlords are still a couple years away from being able to start charging pre-recession rent on commercial space.  Until then, your credit worthiness will be the driving factor in most deals.  Landlords will bend over backwards sometimes just to keep space filled.

So if you have either good credit or a strong rent history, it is still a good time to negotiate or re-negotiate your lease and get a much better deal than you would have just a few years ago.  A landlord would rather give you a good deal than have you not sign the lease.

You can ask for any number of concessions: reduced rent, free months, a shorter lease, a termination clause, generous tenant improvement packages, caps on common area maintenance (CAM), etc.

INSTEAD of me telling you stories about the clients we’ve helped negotiate their lease, I thought it would be better to hear YOUR story.

What kind of deal did you get?  Did you have to negotiate intensely or did the landlord pretty much give you what you wanted?  Or did you get screwed?  Share your story in the comment area below.