Reviews
Part of What to check in industrial space before you lease: clear height, docks, yard, and services
How to judge an industrial space adviser before you hire one
Give an industrial space adviser your specification, see what they do with it, check who pays each service, and use one building to find their limits.
The test of an industrial adviser is whether they ask for your numbers before they show you anything. A representative who sends listings before they know your clear height, your dock count and your power load is not searching; they are forwarding. The same test applies to every other service in the chain.
This page is about how to judge those services, one by one. For a searchable directory of vetted industrial and office brokers by market, the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) maintains a public member list.
Verify the licence and the credential
Real estate brokerage is a licensed activity in every U.S. state. Before you meet a candidate, confirm that the individual and the firm hold a current license through your state's real estate licensing authority. Most states publish a lookup on the agency's website; search by name or license number and note any disciplinary history.
Beyond the state licence, look for a professional designation that signals industrial specialization. SIOR requires members to complete industrial transactions of a minimum volume and pass an examination. CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member) covers analytical depth across commercial property types. Neither replaces the state licence, but both give you a credential to ask about and verify.
What to take away
- Give every candidate your requirement on one page and watch what they do with it. The good ones push back on it.
- The specialists who matter most are the ones the landlord does not supply: a fire protection engineer, a material handling designer, and someone who can talk to the utility and the planning office.
- Conflicts are normal. Undisclosed conflicts are the problem.
The services, and what each is for
| Service | The question it answers | Who usually pays |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial representative | Which buildings exist that meet the specification, and on what terms | Landlord, at signing |
| Material handling designer | How many pallets, at what module, in this grid and height | You, by fee, or an equipment vendor |
| Fire protection engineer | Whether the sprinklers suit the commodity and height | You, by fee |
| Electrical or MEP engineer | Whether the power and services support the process | You, by fee |
| Environmental consultant | What is under the slab, and what permits the process needs | You, by fee |
| Logistics or site modeller | Where the building should be, given customers, suppliers and labor | You, by fee |
| Lawyer with industrial leases | Roof, slab, yard, dock and surrender allocations | You, by fee |
The lease allocations in the last row, and why they matter more in industrial than elsewhere, are set out in industrial space.
Give them the specification
Before the first meeting, write your requirement as numbers: pallet positions and module, movements per day by vehicle, connected load, heaviest equipment, staff on the largest shift, hours, what stays outside. Then send it and watch.
Write your requirement as numbers
- Pallet positions and module
- Movements per day by vehicle
- Connected load
- Heaviest equipment
- Staff on the largest shift
- Hours
- What stays outside
- A good representative asks about the rows you left blank, and tells you which buildings in the area fail the specification and why.
- A good designer asks for the grid and clear height of any candidate before drawing anything, and tells you the capacity in pallets, not in square feet.
- A good engineer asks what you store and how high before commenting on any sprinkler system, because the design basis is a standard such as NFPA 13 and the answer turns on commodity and storage height.
- A good lawyer asks what you will install, so the surrender clause can be written now.
An adviser who takes the specification and comes back with a tour has not read it.
Follow the money
Ask each candidate who pays them, when, and whether the amount depends on the outcome.
Follow the money
Who pays them, when, and does the amount depend on the outcome?
Representative paid by landlord at signing -> ask what happens if you renew, buy, or take a smaller building
Designer attached to an equipment vendor -> ask if the design fee is credited against equipment
None of these is a reason not to hire. They are reasons to know which parts of the advice to check.
Set the engagement terms before you sign
Once you have shortlisted a representative, the hiring step itself is a negotiation. A tenant-representation agreement should state:
- Scopewhich buildings, which markets, which use types the representative will search.
- Exclusivitywhether you may engage another representative during the term. Under an exclusive agency you cannot use another representative without risk of owing the first one a commission even if the landlord pays the second.
- Durationhow long the agreement runs before it must be renewed or renegotiated.
- Terminationwhat notice you owe to end the engagement, and whether any commission survives termination on a deal you close after the agreement ends.
- Paymentwho pays the commission and when. The table above notes that the landlord usually pays the industrial representative at signing; confirm this in writing so no surprise fee lands on you.
Do not sign a representation agreement that leaves any of these blank.
The specialists you cannot skip
Fire protection. No listing, representative or landlord can tell you whether the sprinklers suit your goods. A fire protection engineer, with the design documents and your inventory, can, and your insurer will want to see the opinion. Judge them by whether they ask about packaging and storage height before anything else.
Specialists you cannot skip
- Fire protectionsprinklers suit your goods
- Material handlingcapacity from grid, height, module
- Utility and permissionanswers in writing
Material handling. Capacity is a function of grid, height, module and equipment. A designer who has laid out buildings for your kind of goods will tell you within an hour whether a candidate holds what you need. Judge them by whether they bring the layout to the building rather than the reverse.
Utility and permission. Someone has to write to the utility about capacity and lead time, and to the planning office about the use table, the performance standards and the yard. This can be you, a representative who does it routinely, or a consultant. Judge them by whether they get answers in writing. The enquiry itself is described in zoning and permits.
Testing a representative on one building
Pick a building you have already assessed against your specification. Ask the candidate to look at it and tell you:
Test a representative on one building
- What it fails on, what it passes on
- What they would ask the landlord first
- What utility and fire authority must confirm
- What the yard is permitted to hold
- Which lease allocations they would fight over
- Whether the truck court depth fits the turning radius of your largest vehicle.
- The available power at the meter and whether it covers your connected load.
- The dock count and door height against your trailer mix.
- The clear height under the lowest obstruction, not under the roof peak.
Compare the answer with yours. If they saw a problem you missed, you have found value. If they missed the truck court, the power or the yard, you have found the limit of the service.
Check the track record
Ask each candidate for three recent industrial transactions in your market and your use type. Call the tenant side of those deals if the representative will give you contact information. Ask what went wrong, not only what went right. A representative who cannot name a single deal where they pushed the landlord back on a term has either not done enough deals or is not telling you the truth.
You do not need public filings to verify a deal. The representative's own transaction log, cross-checked against the contacts they provide, is enough for a first screen.
Buying instead of leasing
If the operation depends on installed equipment that cannot move, an adviser should raise the ownership question before you ask it. A representative who only does leases will not. Judge the adviser by whether they raise it unprompted.
The decision has its own method, set out in commercial buying. An adviser who can run both sides honestly is worth more than one who can only run one.
Where the building should be
For a distribution operation, the address is a modeling question before it is a property question: where customers, suppliers, labor and the road network set the center of gravity. A representative can search inside an answer, but rarely produce it. Judge the adviser by whether they can read a gravity model's output against your truck routes, even if they did not build the model.
The method for producing it is in location selection. A logistics modeller is the service that does it at scale.
Common questions
Do I need all of these for a small unit?
For a small unit with ordinary storage and no installed equipment, a representative and a lawyer are enough. The fire protection and material handling opinions become necessary the moment you store anything unusual or rack above a modest height.
Should the equipment vendor's designer lay out the building?
They can, and they are often good. Know that the design serves the sale, ask for the fee to be separate, and have the grid and height check done before you commit to either.
What is the one question that identifies a good representative?
"What does this building fail on?" A good one has a list. A poor one has a tour.
When should the engineers be engaged?
When a building reaches the shortlist, with your specification in hand. Their opinion on two candidates costs far less than a lease on the wrong one.
