Selling a Commercial Property
Selling commercial property successfully requires an up-to-date awareness of local property values, a careful understanding of the legislation surrounding commercial property sales as well as an understanding of what commercial property buyers are looking for from sellers.
“How long does commercial property take to sell?”
Selling commercial property could take anything from a couple of weeks to a year or longer. Whether it’s an office or a warehouse, all selling timescales are directly affected by market elements such as the price of the property and local demand for a commercial property of your size and type. Other more legislative factors that might impact the ability of the purchaser to run a business from your property will also impact the selling time; these factors include whether you are selling a freehold or leasehold property, local planning constraints that apply to commercial property of your type, as well as any issues with the title of the commercial property itself.
“What sort of information are commercial property buyers looking for?”
In addition to tenure and location, commercial property advertisements also need to include extra details on the available square footage or square meters of the property. This is generally taken to be the area in which the commercial property’s purchaser can conduct business, and doesn’t necessarily include bathrooms, corridors etc. Price per sqm is an important benchmark that commercial property purchasers will use to compare your property to others in the area, so it’s important to include this information when selling.
The zoning, or planning class, of your commercial property, will also be of interest to buyers. For instance, a commercial property that is classed as A1 in the UK will allow any future purchaser to open a shop, but extra permission needs to be sought if the buyer intends to use the property for a financial services business (A2 class required), restaurant (A3 required) or pub (A4 required). Some classifications will allow you to change the use of the property or downgrade the classification; for instance, if your property is classed as A4, it might be of interest to anyone looking for an A3, A2 or A1 property in your area, as a change of use is allowed in this case.
If you are selling a retail property in particular, the more information you can provide about the location the better. It’s worth including a postcode or embedding a map, as well as including notes on the average footfall and opening hours of the street you are selling your commercial property on.
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“How do I know what price I should sell at?”
For accurate market values, compare your ideal selling price to the asking prices of commercial properties for sale that have a similar use to yours before basing your value solely on location or square footage. The selling price of an office block might be affected by proximity to air and rail links, while footfall and shop frontage would be much more important if selling a retail unit.
If in any doubt about the selling price, it pays to get a free commercial valuation. You can apply for a commercial property valuation for free through our site by clicking here – just provide some basic details about your commercial property for sale and a select number of key commercial estate agents will call you back to discuss current commercial property market values in your area.
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