How to Market Your Commercial Property for Sale by Owner

Marketing 101: The better your marketing is, the better chances you have of getting top dollar for your commercial property.

Especially if you’re looking to take the for sale by owner route.

That’s right - you don’t necessarily need a commercial broker to list your property, although the services they provide justify the costs, more often than not.

So, here’s how to market your commercial property for sale by owner.

1. Work with a Commercial Real Estate Broker

Wait - didn’t we just say we’re not listing with a commercial real estate broker?

Yes. Yes we did.

However, chances are good that you will still work with a commercial real estate broker on the transaction since they’re the boots on the ground for other investors.

You’ll want to be sure to protect their commissions in your marketing to incentivize them to bring you their buyer pool.

Notify Commercial Brokerages

Once you have your marketing together (which we’ll discuss below) you should send it to local commercial real estate brokerages.

They’ll add your property to your repertoire so they can get it in front of any potential buyers.

You can email their office directly or drop flyers off at the front desks.

2. Take Interior / Exterior Photos

High quality photos have a massive impact.

They can be the difference between someone skipping over your marketing materials without a second thought or a prospective tenant immediately for a tour.

So, don’t just use your phone.

Unless you have a serious camera, hire a professional photographer.

The cost of having professional photos taken is minimal compared to the sale of the property and we’ve always gotten value out of them.

We use the Canon EOS M50 for all of our photos. The quality is excellent and the lens that it comes with is wide enough to capture the majority of your rooms.

It’s also nice having a camera on-hand since we can re-shoot photos at any time (say, if the walls get repainted).

Drone Footage

If you want to really take your marketing to the next level, fly a drone over the property.

Get some aerials. Show the full site.

Drone videos allow potential buyers to see the property in its entirety and they also give context for the neighborhood around the site.

Not to mention they add a serious level of professionalism to your marketing.

If you don’t have a drone, you can find and hire a pilot in your area to take the shots for you. (pro tip: search for them on Instagram - that way you can also see their work)

Some, like us, prefer to keep that marketing in-house.

The DJI Mavic 2 Pro (pictured above) is what we use for all of our marketing. It’s an incredible machine and has definitely exceeded all of our requirements.

3D Virtual Tour

3D virtual tours may just be the future of marketing commercial real estate.

They’re especially helpful for any groups looking to relocate their operations to your area that might be unable to physically tour their options.

Having a 3D tour will give you a leg-up on your competition and they really come in handy for showing the condition of the space, if you’ve forgotten anything.

Like all of our marketing, we do everything in-house, so I have a Ricoh Theta V spherical camera with a tripod.

And it’s actually much easier to operate than you’d think.

Set it in the room and press a button on your phone. Boom.

3. Put Together a Marketing Flyer

Once you’ve taken your interior and exterior shots and drone photos, it’s time to throw together a marketing packet.

And if you get the Ricoh Theta V, it will generate a floor plan that you could use, too.

This marketing flyer should include:

• The property address or building name

• Flattering shots of the property

• A description of the building and the neighborhood

• And, of course, your contact information

I typically design these for 8.5” x 11” since you can easily print that off.

Hand these out on tours when you’re meeting with prospects so that they have a take-home item to remind them about the building and your contact info and distribute it anywhere you see fit.

We like to drop around 50 flyers off to businesses in the immediate area (because they may know someone looking in that neighborhood), as well as brokerage offices.

4. List the Property Online

Almost everyone has the internet in their pocket today.

And that’s lead to a significant amount of online shopping - including for real estate!

Take advantage of the opportunity you’re given by listing your property for sale online.

Here are a few ways you can do that:

CREXi / Ten-X / Craigslist

Online commercial real estate marketplaces are a very interesting world.

We’ve found them to be very hit or miss - either they have every detail possible about a property or all of the information is incorrect.

Because of that and the costs associated with marketing your property, we tend to stay away from these platforms and focus more on our own website, but you still can find success with using any of the websites listed above.

Unless you’re willing to receive strange calls at all hours, be sure to just list your email address (especially on Craigslist).

Create a Property Website

Create a website using your property’s address as the URL.

List all of your photos, your marketing flyer, and any other information on the property that you can possibly compile.

Not only will you be able to share this site with prospects, but you could also start ranking in Google if you take the right steps - meaning organic traffic will find your listing.

You can even use Facebook and Google ads to drive traffic to your page.

5. Share with Your Network

Let your friends and family know that you have space available.

Many brokers and landlords will also carry those flyers or “teaser cards” around with them to hand out to people they feel may have interest, are looking for space, or would be a good fit.

You never know who you’re going to run into.

And don’t forget to share on social media! LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram have worked the best for us, but you can also tap into YouTube and Twitter.

6. Notify Your Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Board

Your local Chambers of Commerce and Economic Development Boards are an excellent resource for you when you’re selling commercial property.

They’re actively working to recruit and retain businesses in your area, which means they need to know about available properties.

Become a member of your local chamber and network with the business owners there or send information on your available property to the appropriate parties at the CofC or EDB.

These groups keep a running list of the available sites in the area so they can get them in front of their prospects.

7. Place High Quality Signage Onsite

And I mean high quality.

Many property owners will put a small “for sale” sign they bought from Home Depot in the window and wonder why no one ever reaches out about their space.

No one can see it!

You should also consider having custom signage made, which is what we do for each property.

Think “2,000 sq. ft. available” or “office suites.” I’ve even seen some owners put floor plans on their signage.

The more information you can provide, the more likely that each call will be a high quality lead.

About The Author:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate broker and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors as a board member for the Real Estate Investors of Nashville.