To Quote or Not to Quote Office Rents

Michael Arnold

When marketing an office space, should brokers quote or not quote the expected rent? With the healthy supply of office options in the Los Angeles market, tenant rep broker Michael Arnold of NAI Capital says that leasing brokers should abandon the no-quote strategy. He says that not quoting a rent could actually hinder the leasing activity on a space because tenant brokers won’t call to check the rent.

“Landlords are not quoting rates, and I think that the impetus behind that is that brokers think that people are going to call them to find out the rate and they will get interest in it,” Arnold, EVP and director of the tenant consulting group at NAI Capital, tells GlobeSt.com. “To me, it makes no sense not to quote the rent that you are going to try to achieve. I don’t have time to get the rents of every single opportunity, and if you don’t want to quote them, you are probably not going to want to put a really economic deal together. I have an idea of a budget that I am dealing with for my client, and if I can’t get the rate, then I am spinning my wheels. I have never been an advocate of it.”