Commercial real estate agents certainly had their work cut out for them in 2020\u2014although the industrial sector was on fire, the same can hardly be said for the office and retail spaces.<\/p>\n
Some agents, however, were looking at commercial real estate in a different way.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy business partner, Kathleen, and I both have our CCIM [Certified Commercial Investment Member] designation, which includes education and a minimum quota,\u201d said the head of the and co-owner of Century 21 Leading Edge VIP Realty. \u201cYou receive a pin and take an oath to represent it with honesty and integrity. It\u2019s comparable to having a CPA or CGA in accounting, but it\u2019s specific to commercial real estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
CCIM is the National Association of Realtors\u2019 highest designation, requiring 250 hours and to eight to 10 courses, and allows members to network and enhance their investment opportunities in the world\u2019s most vigorous markets.<\/p>\n
In particular, CCIM teaches adherents how to evaluate commercial properties in wholly different ways than their cohorts do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look for needs and do something called \u2018gap analysis,\u2019 which is based on the supply and demand of certain sectors in any given area and we look for what\u2019s lacking,\u201d said Sharma. \u201cMaybe there\u2019s only one tire store there but 10,000 households. Based on people\u2019s spending habits over X number of years, there\u2019s this much business sitting on the table, and only one provider is eating up all that money.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe examine the goods and services in a certain city or neighbourhood to see if there\u2019s a way to capitalize. Let\u2019s say there\u2019s a retail plaza on a main street that gets a transit line, the city, as per the provincial intensification mandate, will increase residential density. That plaza\u2019s best use then becomes a mixed-use development with, say, a doctor\u2019s office on the ground level and apartments above it. Or more land could be acquired to turn it into a .\u201d<\/p>\n
For Sharma and his business partner, and Century 21 Leading Edge VIP Realty co-founder, Kathleen Xie, that kind of outside-of-the-box thinking stems from careful study of city plans. Xie says that\u2019s the difference between discarding a condemned, seemingly worthless site or conjuring a higher use for it that aligns with forthcoming city development plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did over $60 million in commercial transactions in 2020 just in Toronto alone,\u201d said Xie. \u201cA lot of what we see is development opportunities. Retail, for example, is in the midst of evolution; yes, it\u2019s changing and it needs to be redeveloped. We help find it that better use.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commercial real estate agents certainly had their work cut out for them in 2020\u2014although the industrial sector was on fire, the same can hardly be said for the office and retail spaces. Some agents, however, were looking at commercial real estate in a different way. \u201cMy business partner, Kathleen, and I both have our CCIM […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23281,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020\/revisions\/23281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}