10 MUST-KNOW COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE TERMS

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Because commercial real estate documents like leases and purchase agreements are frequently complicated, many people choose to start the process of negotiating a deal with a letter of intent, or LOI. LOIs are short documents that spell out deal points and get used to draft legal documents.

1. Letter of Intent

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When you rent a space, the area inside its walls is called the usable square footage. You will usually also have to pay for

your share of the floor's common areas -- like hallways and bathrooms. The combination of the two is called your rentable

square footage.

2. Rentable vs. Usable Sq. Ft.

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Load, or core, factors are ways to express how much common area space you have to pay for. If you have a 5,000

square foot usable space and also have to pay for 600 square feet of common area, you would have a 12 percent

load factor, since 5,600 divided by 5,000 is 1.12, or 12 percent more.

3. Load Factors

Load vs. Loss Factor

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Leases have language that makes their rate go up periodically, frequently to keep pace with inflation. These increases are referred to as rent escalations and are common in commercial real estate. Rent can escalate by either a dollar amount or by percentage.Example:If a base rent of $28 escalates by $0.50 after the first year, it would be $28.50 on year two. If the escalation was 3%, the year two cost would be $28.84.

4. Rent Escalations

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When you lease new space, you typically need to have it customized

for your needs. Those customizations are referred to as

tenant improvements and you can frequently get the landlord to pay

some or all of their cost.

5. Tenant Improvements

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When you sign a full service gross lease, you pay a set amount that includes both your rent and the costs of

managing your space, such as utilities, repairs, taxes and management.

6. Full Service Gross Leases

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In a triple net lease, you pay rent for your space and you pay your share of the building's operating expenses. Typically,

triple net rents are less than gross rents, but that does not take into account the additional expense that you will have to

bear.

7. Triple Net Leases

Learn More about Lease Types

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The extra money that you pay along with your triple net rent to cover operating expenses is referred to as CAM charges.

CAM stands for common area maintenance or management.

8. CAM / Common Area Maintenance

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One of the most favorable terms that you can have your

commercial real estate broker negotiate for on your behalf is an

option to renew. Options let you stay in your space beyond the

end of your lease without you having to commit up front.

9. Options to Renew

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On the other hand, if a space ceases to meet your company's commercial real estate strategy, you might need to move out of it early. Having an assignment and subletting clause in your lease lets you either step away by assigning your lease to someone else or find a sub-tenant to sub-lease the space from you. In a sublet, they pay you rent and you turn around and make your lease payments.

10. Assignment and Subletting

When Subleasing Your Space is a Good Idea

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