For many restaurant tenants, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While a restaurateur focuses on preparing and serving high quality food and drink menu items, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized sales people. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate.
Whether you are leasing a new location for the first time or negotiating a lease renewal for your restaurant, here are some money-saving tips for our book, Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals FOR DUMMIES:
Negotiate to Win
All too frequently, restaurant tenants enter into lease negotiations unprepared and do not even try winning the negotiations. Also, restaurant tenants often mistakenly set their sights on just striking a fair deal. This usually plays right into the hands of the leasing agent - the agent works for the landlord and is most certainly negotiating to win the best deal for his boss. If you're not negotiating to win … you won't. It's okay to negotiate assertively!