Office Leasing Brokers

i think you are in the wrong forum/website

I’m not an authority on this but if I had to take a guess, it’s not a bad career to be in. People will always need to lease, it seems extremely unlikely for companies to have WFH 100% of the time, it’s simply not effective. Yes, the sf per person will likely go down and some people WFH more often than before, but you’ll still need an office.

I’d make an argument that this will force some leasing brokers out of the business. The ones who stay are probably the ones with more connections/ grit/ tenacity/ polished more/ just better at being a top notch leasing broker.

In 2005 everyone and their mother was a Realtor. In 2008 most of them went away. Fast forward, we still have Realtors but not as many pre crisis. There’s still many pulling in 7 figures (not all in major markets, I met this one guy from Ohio who lead this massive team of 30+ agents). My point being, bad times rarely kill businesses (though sometimes they do). More often than not, they just cull the herd.

I think office leasing is in big trouble for the next 4-5 years.

1. Many office markets saw tenant rep brokers leasing themselves out of a job in the run-up of this last cycle. Renewing big tenants early in a high concession market was a win win for broker and client...but now biting brokers in the ass.
2. Covid uncertainty will absolutely cause companies to pump the brakes on big office leasing decision for the next 12-24 months, while companies figure out the new normal and wait to see business cash flows start to normalize again.
3. New supply is going to be much more limited in 18-36 months, when projects that would normally come online won't, since nobody is starting construction right now. Spec office financing is almost impossible to find at present moment, and many developers are struggling to get traction to more forward with a build. These are also the most highly desirable leasing assignments since they generate bigger commissions.

I would probably try and stay away for a couple years.

I personally see there being opportunity. We make money on change and what we're seeing (Major Market, Southeast) is tenants looking for a 10%-20% reduction in space or maintaining due to social distancing. Decision making may be halted for 12-24, with less leasing activity, BUT for those who stick around when all the 30K tenants wants to "right-size" to 20K.... there's still money to be made. the pitch changes but leases are still rolling and there are still deals out there for those who are in front of tenants.

Not sure anyone on here has ever thought "leasing is a good long term play"

Especially tenant rep leasing..

No shit huh. I have no insight but my buddy who's an office tenant rep broker in a T2 city got laid off back in March.

He's making more on unemployment than at his job though lol

Some of the commentary above is straight up wrong.

I work at a large real estate private equity firm and yes, the office asset class is definitely fucked. From a broker’s perspective, lower rents = lower commission, more vacancies = less deals it’s that simple. The market will not recover for many years. However, that is only a minor reason why you should pivot.

The primary reason leasing brokerage is a terrible career path early on in your career is because you gain no valuable skill set. If you want to be a salesman you are way better off going somewhere else to learn technical skills, and then moving into a sales position at a senior level (ie go learn real estate finance and be a mortgage broker).

The dirty secret about office leasing is that it is really entirely dependent on how much a client likes you personally because they have thousands of brokers they can choose from who are offering virtually the same product. I never want to be in a business where client decides to pick me totally because of my personality or the luck of my timing. Someone who is stupid but lucky could beat you every time, that must be so frustrating. Furthermore, it’s so specific you can never really switch out of it, you just got stuck in it. General sales skills are not gonna get you anywhere alone. 
 

Plus, the job is just very boring. Constantly chasing people and cold calling is miserable. Definitely will get old once you’ve been doing it for a decade.