Determining Rental Rate
I am inheriting a commercial piece of property that has operated under a long term lease that is up for renewal soon. I am trying to get a good idea of what the market rental rate is currently and I am at a loss.

The building is in a very popular area of town so there aren't many vacancies I can call and try to get an idea of competitor rental rates. Are there any good sources online that might give leasing information for different areas?

Any other creative ideas to get a good grasp on the market?
[{"id": "cgefmeu", "text": "Talk with a good commercial real estate broker.  They'll know your market inside out.", "replies": [{"id": "cgf5vro", "text": "Thanks for the advice. I was hesitant to talk to a broker when I wouldn't really be using their service or anything. ", "replies": [{"id": "cggf3ch", "text": "Why not use the broker to negotiate the renewal?", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cgeykks", "text": "Comps are your best bet. Getting access to a program like CoStar will help you get an idea but its expensive and only commercial real estate brokers and investors usually have access to it.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cgf2r9n", "text": "Talk to a commercial broker who does a lot of tenant rep in the area, they will have a very good idea of what market rental rates are.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cgf3qtk", "text": "Never use brokers alone to figure out rents, a) the figures they generate will be somewhat ballpark but I guarantee they spent less than 10 minutes getting those figures, b) and speaking of time, they will spend the absolute minimum time on your comps unless you have a good personal relationship where they have made money off you in the past or are just friendly towards you, and some will want some sort of nudge or tip to sweeten the deal.  Do the legwork yourself and build a network of people that you can rely on to help with comps, its your income potential and if you want a random guy with costar to give you rental rates you are leaving a lot of money on the table.\n\nFinding premium rental rates is a bit of an art if you ask me, you need to keep pushing them up but not so high your immediate area comps take your potential renters.  If you are deep in your area you are probably locked to a specific rate to compete.  If you are in a fringe area you might get lucky and charge more, ie..(your apartments are on the edge of the nice part of town, but closer to downtown, so you can potentially get more for your units than a close comp) or you could swing the other way,ie...( your units farther from a developing downtown and on the edge of the lower rent side of town, now you cannot compete with close comps).\n\nIf your building looks pretty and is close to a grade school you can get higher rents. If it looks pretty and is close to a high school you will probably get slightly below comp rents.  And on and on...\n\nThere are so many variables you need to keep a list of good comps that you update every quarter, and always look at where new business development is heading, towards you-rents get a bump up, away from you-rents get bumped down. Developing hoods get bumps if they have a newer elementary school, so do artsy fartsy downtown development and sometimes extreme edge of town can get a positive bump just for getting a Target store. But strip malls, Walmart and High schools have the opposite effect.  Down towns that are full of bars and nightlife will bring your rents down as well. \n\nOverall you need to keep rents at the top to push property values up from year to year, so make the place look nice and feel updated, this goes a long way to keeping rents higher than deferred maintenance comps your broker will throw at you.\n\nOh and Costar is too expensive to use for comps IMHO. Just pretend you are renting, find a cheap unit, a mid level unit and a high end unit in your area and if you need to get more detailed expand your comps out to 6.  You will know where you stand and get a tight figure of what to charge if you have first hand experience. Do not let your comps get out of date or you could low ball a renter and then you are stuck for a year with lower rents for that unit than you should be getting. ", "replies": [{"id": "cgf5ymu", "text": "This is a great reply. Thanks so much.\n", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]