What to Look for in a Commercial Real Estate Advisor (And Why It Matters More Than You Think)

Choosing a commercial real estate agent is one of the most consequential decisions you will make for your business or investment and many people treat it like hiring a search engine. They want someone who can pull listings and schedule tours. That is the bare minimum. What you actually need is someone who can help you think clearly about location, growth, risk, and long-term financial performance.

The gap between a broker who connects parties and an advisor who understands how properties and businesses actually work will show up in your deal economics, your lease flexibility, and how well your location serves you years down the road.

Look for Experience That Goes Beyond Closing Deals

Many commercial agents start their careers directly in sales. They learn how to market properties, negotiate terms, and move transactions forward. Those are valuable skills. But many of them have never managed a building, dealt with a capital expense budget, or handled the day-to-day realities of keeping a property running.

That is a blind spot, and it matters.

My own path into brokerage started with 9 years on the operations side of real estate. Early in my career, co-managed a 1,400 unit apartment complex. From there, I took on a mixed portfolio of roughly 100,000 square feet of retail and office space alongside 600 multifamily units. Later, I oversaw a portfolio of 700,000 square feet spanning retail, office, and flex properties before transitioning fully into commercial brokerage.

Why does that matter to you? Because property management forces you to confront the things that make or break a deal after the ink dries: real maintenance costs, tenant turnover, deferred capital needs, and leasing strategies that actually keep a building performing. When I am advising you on a purchase, a lease, or an investment, those years show up as sharper budgeting, more honest underwriting, and stronger positioning at the table.

Your Advisor Should Understand Business, Not Just Buildings

Commercial real estate exists to serve businesses. If your advisor does not understand how a business actually runs, they are working with half the picture.

Before I moved fully into brokerage, I founded and operated two small businesses, a painting and cleaning company and a local moving company. I ran each of them for over eight years. That experience gave me a firsthand understanding of the pressures you face every day: protecting margins, managing cash flow, developing staff, and planning for growth without overextending.

When I represent a tenant or a buyer, that background shapes the conversation in ways that go well beyond square footage and asking rent. Instead, we focus on the questions that actually drive good decisions:

• What percentage of your revenue should go toward occupancy costs so you stay healthy in a downturn?

• How will this location support where your business is headed over the next three to seven years?

• What operational limitations could this space create as you grow?

• What flexibility should we build into the deal so you are prepared for both good years and difficult ones?

An advisor who has been in your shoes, dealing with payroll, margins, and growth planning, will ask better questions and push for terms that protect your business, not just terms that close a deal.

When the Right Experience Saves a Deal

A recent transaction shows how operational knowledge can make a real difference.

I helped relocate a boutique retail store in Dublin, Ohio after its previous building was slated for redevelopment. The tenant had lined up contractors for the new build-out, but estimates were coming in at roughly double the budget. Even the lowest bid was far above what a retail build-out of that scope should realistically cost.

Because of relationships I built over years of managing properties, I was able to connect them with general contractors who specialize in retail construction. By coordinating with those contractors and recommending subcontractors I had worked with in the past, we brought the final build-out cost to roughly 40 percent below the lowest estimate they had originally received and just slightly above their initial target budget.

Without those relationships and a grounded understanding of what construction should actually cost, the economics would have killed the deal entirely. That store would not have opened.

Be Cautious of Agents Who Only Send You Listings

One of the most telling signs of a weak advisor is someone who responds to your inquiry by sending a long list of available spaces pulled from a database.

That is not advisory work. That is data delivery, and you can get it yourself.

A strong advisor helps you evaluate whether a location supports your long-term goals, how the deal economics affect your business model, and what risks are hiding in the lease or purchase structure. They bring judgment, not just information.

Just as important, a good advisor is honest about where their expertise ends. When a question involves legal structure, tax strategy, construction engineering, or specialized financing, they bring in the right professionals. You should be skeptical of anyone who acts like they have every answer.

Watch Out for Promises That Do Not Match the Market

Another red flag is an agent who tells you what you want to hear instead of what the market actually supports.

Real estate moves in cycles. Sometimes you will have leverage as a tenant or buyer; other times, the landlord or seller holds the stronger hand. A credible advisor explains what the data shows and gives you a realistic range of outcomes not just the most optimistic one.

If retail vacancy in your target submarket is at 2 percent, an agent who promises 30 percent rent reductions is not demonstrating skill. They are demonstrating a disconnect from reality. You are better served by someone who sets honest expectations and structures the deal to maximize your position within them.

What the Right Advisory Relationship Looks Like

A good advisory process starts well before you tour a single property or review an investment opportunity.

It begins with understanding your objectives in depth, your short-term priorities, your long-term growth plans, the operational pain points you are dealing with today, and the financial fundamentals of your business or portfolio. For tenants, that often means looking at what level of occupancy cost your revenue can actually sustain. For investors, it means understanding your return targets and how different deal structures affect performance over time.

From there, the work moves into market analysis. That means evaluating the broader metro area, drilling into specific submarkets, and studying the locations of competitors and complementary businesses. Demographics, population growth, daytime employment, traffic patterns, and nearby development all play into whether a location will serve you well over time or become a liability.

With that foundation, I develop multiple financial scenarios so you can see the range of outcomes. Conservative projections define your downside risk. Optimistic scenarios show what is possible if the location performs well. Understanding both prepares you to act decisively when conditions shift, whether in your favor or against it.

Negotiation then becomes about structuring the deal so both sides achieve their core priorities. In many cases, small adjustments to timing, concessions, or deal terms can create alignment where a purely price-driven approach would stall.

Finally, I adapt my involvement to what you actually need. Some of you want hands-on guidance through due diligence, construction, and closing. Others have internal teams and prefer to keep me focused on strategy and negotiation. Either way, the relationship should flex to serve you.

The Bottom Line

The best commercial real estate advisors do far more than match tenants with landlords or buyers with sellers. They help you make better decisions about location, deal structure, risk, and long-term value.

When you are choosing an advisor, the question worth asking is not how many deals they have closed or how many listings they control. The better question is whether they can help you make smarter decisions over the life of your business or investment.