Retail, Offices & Commercial Real Estate
Commercial Leasing & Value
How leases, tenant mix and covenant strength drive commercial value — and how to negotiate and manage a lease across its whole life. Reading a lease for what it actually obliges, separating headline from effective rent, weighing covenant and WAULT, building tenant mix as an income decision, negotiating terms and heads of terms from either side of the table, and running the reviews, consents, arrears, breaks and dilapidations that decide what a tenancy is finally worth. Ends with an applied toolkit of templates and two worked cases.
The promise
Read a lease for the terms that actually drive value, negotiate it from either side of the table, and manage it across a life that decides what the tenancy is finally worth.
By the end you can
- Abstract a lease to its value-driving terms and read the cost spectrum it sits on
- Separate headline from effective rent and compare deals on total occupancy cost
- Weigh covenant strength and WAULT, and price what a void actually costs
- Build tenant mix as an income decision and convert a rent roll into a value
- Negotiate terms and heads of terms, and hold a break clause that survives its conditions
- Run reviews, consents, arrears, dilapidations and a re-gear before a lease runs out
Where this course takes you
This course is part of 3 role tracks, each ending in a professional deliverable.
You'll produce: A business plan for an asset — value-creation levers, leasing strategy, capex, ESG, and a hold / sell view.
You'll produce: A leasing or occupier strategy — options shortlist, rent and total-occupancy-cost comparison, negotiation points, and a recommendation.
You'll produce: A portfolio occupancy strategy — space demand, lease events, consolidation options, and a cost plan.
Curriculum
Reading a Lease
The lease is the asset. Learn to read term, break options, rent reviews and the gross/net/triple-net spectrum that determines who bears cost.
Rent, Incentives and Effective Rent
Headline rent flatters. Learn rent-free periods, fit-out contributions and service-charge recovery, and compute the effective rent that actually reaches the landlord.
Covenant, WAULT and Income Security
Not all income is equal. Assess covenant strength, weight lease terms into WAULT, and see how tenant quality, lease length and voids drive value.
Retail Tenant Mix and Value from Income
Bring it together in retail: catchment and tenant mix, anchors and footfall, turnover rent, and the capitalisation that turns secure income into value.
Negotiating the Lease
What each side is actually trying to buy, which terms carry the most value, how heads of terms bind the negotiation that follows, and where lettings fall apart between agreement and signature.
Managing the Lease Through Its Life
What happens after signature: rent reviews, break and renewal dates that must be diarised, consents for assignment and alteration, arrears and enforcement, dilapidations, and re-gearing a lease before it runs out.
Applied Toolkit & Templates
Copy-ready templates and working sheets for leasing and occupier work: lease abstracts, effective-rent calculators, WAULT and covenant tracking, retail tenant-mix planning, and occupier requirements briefs. Each template includes how-to-use guidance and common mistakes to avoid.
Course assessment
Sign in to open lessons and track your progress.
The capstone project
This course ends in a real professional deliverable. Use the brief and the five criteria below to check your own work against the standard a competent professional would be held to.
Your final deliverable
Leasing Strategy Capstone
Check your work against five criteria
- Method & rigour: The right framework, applied correctly, with the working shown — not just an answer.
- Data honesty: Every figure is sourced, triangulated, or explicitly flagged “requires local market data”. Nothing is invented.
- Analysis & judgment: Assumptions are explicit, at least one alternative is weighed, and the key risks are quantified.
- Recommendation: A clear, decision-useful conclusion a professional could act on — with the conditions that qualify it.
- Communication: Structured, concise, and client-ready — the argument lands.
When it's ready
Your deliverable is ready when it meets the bar on all five criteria — work a competent professional could put in front of a client or committee.
Revising your work
The capstone is self-directed: you check your own work against the rubric. Where a criterion isn't met yet, revise that part and check it again — as many times as you need.
More in this academy
Occupier & Tenant Representation
Advising occupiers and representing tenants: reading the occupier's business need, defining requirements, comparing stay-vs-go and lease-vs-own, negotiating on the tenant's behalf, delivering the fit-out and move, controlling occupancy cost in use, and moving from a single transaction to a portfolio strategy.
Winning Business: Lead Generation & Client Development
Build a durable business development practice for commercial brokerage: define a patch and own it, prospect with market insight rather than pleas — including where no transaction data is published, grow referrals and reputation without acquiring conflicts, convert interest into properly priced mandates, deliver them to a standard that earns the next one, run the book as a business, and scale it beyond your own hours.