Use of a Renter's Broker
Looking for an opinion.  We are preparing to negotiate a lease on a new larger warehouse facility for our business.  We are renting our current space from the building owner and the lease was pretty minimal.  The new space we are looking at is owned by a large commercial management company.

I found the property on [Loopnet.com](https://Loopnet.com) and reached out to the property manager myself.  The property is being leased at well below market value (50% of the cost of other properties)  if we take the property as is (which is fine with us, as is, the place checks 95% of our requirements, the remaining 5% are not deal breakers).  

A friend and tenant of the same business part recommended we seek the services of a tenant's agent to help us negotiate the lease.  His fees will come from the property manager, so we are out nothing.  Our concern is if we bring in a tenant agent that the property manager, now having to pay additional fees will be less willing to negotiate, but the flip side is we want to make sure we are getting the best deal possible for us long term with the right to expand into adjacent properties if need be, the right of first refusal on adjacent properties and some protections where we can get out of our lease if we need to expand, but the property manager doesn't have any suitable properties.

The Tenant's agent of course says property managers love him because he sets tenants expectations and helps to keep things on track.

What are your thoughts?  If I engage with a tenant's agent, will I lose something because the property manager will have to pay my tenant's agent?
[{"id": "fqbs6v0", "text": "Broker here doing landlord and tenant work - use an agent. More often the transaction runs more smoothly as the agent knows the game and the solutions so you spend less time dealing with this special project and more time on the business. You are (at least in theory) engaging a expert to speed this process up and get it done right. \n\nAn agent should also be able to protect you with additional rights, options, and restrictions that you are not considering or simply do not know about. Your particular point of the property manager not have something suitable right now, could possibly be addressed with the correct language if the property actually exists in the project. If something goes wrong or if you have questions down the road about your lease, you can always call the broker and get them to help sort it out. \n\nAs for the fees, the broker gets what they negotiate. Not your job to negotiate some else's fee. At this point, the property manager was probably going to just pocket the fees for themselves as they likely have a fee share agreement written into their property management agreement. If they argue that they can no longer do such and such deal, it is a garbage argument but one I hear fairly often from cheap landlords.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "fqd49kl", "text": "Do you have an offer submitted yet? If not, shouldn't be a big deal to add a broker.\n\nAsk other tenants at the property if you want to know the real story on the LL/property mgmt. (who doesn't like to warn someone off from a shitty LL)", "replies": [{"id": "fqd6tib", "text": "No offer submitted yet.   They gave us what they called a proposal which outlined the monthly rent, annual increases, estimated NNN, parking allocation etc.  if we accepted this proposal, they would prepare the lease for our review and approval.  \n\nI did ask about the possibility of adding a few improvements to the property.  They didn\u2019t say no, but it was clear they didn\u2019t want to do that as they said it would more than double the monthly rent (adding $25k to the overall rent over 3 years) even though I estimated about $3000 in improvements.  \n\nWe have spoken to a few tenants and the reviews have been positive and the property appears to be well maintained inside and out so I would say they are at minimum a decent landlord.", "replies": [{"id": "fqd9odh", "text": "It sounds like you're doing a 3 year lease (and if 25k doubles the amount paid) it sounds like rent is about $700/mo. Apologies in advance if I'm making errors in my extrapolated info. \n\nYou're going to have a hard time getting a broker involved over a $750 commission (3% to the tenant side)\n\nAlso, for deals this small, improvements are deal killers. What if it sits in permits for 3 months, then construction, then inspections, etc until its 6 months no rent collected and you don't have a space.", "replies": [{"id": "fqdd4rp", "text": "My apologies...I shouldn't have gone from memory before I had my coffee.\n\nThe rent is $4.25/sf/yr (plus NNN) on an approximately 10,000sf property, so monthly rent is around $3700.\n\nWith the improvements we initially asked for (that we are likely not going to pursue unless our tenant agent can get them), they wanted to kick the pricing up to $9.50/sf/yr which would bring the rent up to $7850/mo or $94200/yr.\n\nThe improvements were some additional lighting and fans in the warehouse space and a kitchenette (the rough-ins were already there) in the office space", "replies": [{"id": "fqdfh7m", "text": "Yeah, so permitting/timing is an issue (electric, plumbing, etc)\n\nThat's a lot more than $3k in work/improvments. A LOT.\n\nMy guess is $20-30k, plus 4 months no rent while the LL does the work, the rent increase is a little big, but only a little. I know it seems rediculous, but it adds up quick. \n\nLong term (financially) you're betrer off hiring subs yourself. Take the rent savings, the LL would want you to renew at the higher rate in 3 years. From your experience level is sounds like a good gc is needed.", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]