Retail Shopping Centre Rents Post Covid
Retail Shopping Centre Rents Post Covid FLNT Pty Limited (www.flnt.com.au ) which is part of a $AUD 100 million prop tech fund of EGX has recently joined the Property Funds Association. FLNT is the owner of Leaseinfo Retail (www.leaseinfo.com.au ) – the largest online provider of retail leasing data in Australia and Leasinfo Fuel – […]
How AI can Produce Quicker & More Accurate Lease Abstraction
Accurate and timely lease abstraction is critical for many types of organisations; from retailers and occupiers wanting to manage their leased portfolios, to landlords and property managers seeking to ensure their obligations are met, and accountants and lawyers trying to deliver for their clients. Unfortunately, the process is labour intensive, time consuming and error prone. […]
What is AASB 1060 and What Does it Mean for your Business?
New AASB 1060 standards were issued in March 2020 by the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) to come into effect from periods beginning on or after 1 July 2021 (years ending 30 June 2022 and onwards). So what do these new standards actually mean for your business? Will you have to change your disclosure systems? […]

Leasing Basics: Key Lease Terms
Understanding key lease terms can often assist both lessors and lessees to better grasp their lease entitlements and obligations in complex leases. To assist you in better understanding your leases, we’ve outlined in this blog post some of the key terms that you will come across in most retail and other commercial leases. Types of […]

What is a BATNA Analysis
A BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) analysis is an extremely useful negotiation strategy to assist in reaching the best possible deal. Keep reading to uncover what a BATNA is and how it can help you. What is a BATNA analysis? BATNA stands for ‘Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement’. This tool was developed […]

How to Surrender or Assign a Lease
There are differing reasons a tenant may wish to surrender or assign their lease. If this does occur, the tenant should carefully consider their options and seek professional advice. It is important for anyone who is currently in (or even thinking about entering) a lease to be aware of what may happen if the venture […]

Lease Audits – A Key Risk Management Tool
In this blog post we will explore lease audits and how they are a key risk management tool for any business with a commercial lease portfolio, big or small. What is a lease audit? A lease audit is the process whereby lease provisions and obligations are examined and interpreted to ensure they have been appropriately […]

How to Review your Lease in Less Time
Commercial leases can be extremely complex and difficult to comprehend, with hours of manual review often required to accurately understand your obligations. For any business who deals with numerous properties and therefore a multitude of leases, the lease abstraction process is time consuming, laborious, error prone, costly and inefficient. There is a better way. Accurait® […]

12 Key Terms to Negotiate in Your Retail Lease Besides the Rent
Staying on top of the multitude of clauses in a retail lease can be extremely overwhelming, often leading to important provisions being overlooked. Getting your head around these 12 key terms is therefore imperative if you want to acquire the best deal when entering a retail lease negotiation. Area Can you believe that 60% of […]

Four Common Retail Leasing Traps: How to Not Get Caught Out
In this weeks blog post we will show you how to follow these four tips to avoid the common traps which commercial tenants are too often falling victim to. Not Completing a Dilapidation Report Tenants can fall into the trap of not documenting the state of the premises upon entry into their lease. This may […]

The 3 Biggest Mistakes in Retail Leasing & How to Avoid Them
Too often, Lessees are making these three common and extremely costly leasing mistakes. Read through these tips to ensure you do not fall into these simple traps. Selecting the Wrong Retail Site for Your Business Retail site selection is a complex decision which will have great influence on your retail strategy going forward. It is […]

Mitigating Leasing Risk: Negotiating Break Clauses and Capped Occupancy Costs
Current economic uncertainty pre, as well as post Pandemic has fostered an increased desire for risk mitigating factors to be included within commercial leases. Specifically, redevelopments and extensions in shopping centres have become particularly uncertain for tenants due to insufficient trade area for new development, additional competition from other centres and poor or ill-conceived design. […]

What You Should Know About Market Rent Reviews
In this weeks blog post we will be looking at Market Rent Reviews and whether the Retail Leases Act applies, how to appoint a determining valuer and the submission to valuer process. What is a market rent review? If your lease contains an option, it will most likely have a market rent review. This facilitates […]

Fitout Clawback Clause Provisions in Australia – Are They Enforceable?
In today’s blog post we will be exploring fitout clawback provisions and looking at whether they are enforceable or not. What is a fitout clawback provision? A fitout clawback clause or provision is a lease term whereby a fitout contribution provided by a Lessor, can under certain circumstances, be partially recovered by the Lessor. These […]

Understanding Make Good Obligations
In this week’s blog we will be looking a little more in-depth at one of the key clauses of a commercial lease, helping you to get a better understanding of make good obligations. What is a make good obligation under a lease? A make good clause sets out the requirements of the tenant upon the […]

Top 7 Tips to Help You Negotiate a Better Lease Deal
At first, negotiating a lease deal can seem to be an extremely daunting process. With an abundance of niche leasing terms and cumbersome clauses, it is challenging to know where to even begin and which terms of the lease are especially important to understand. Following these seven simple steps will ensure you are better equipped […]

Key Features of an Effective Lease Management System
Property Lease Management Systems are sophisticated and powerful tools which assist lessees across the country (and around the world) in organising and managing their obligations of their leases. However, a recent influx of software solutions of all shapes and sizes for commercial businesses begs the question, “How do I tell which one is the best […]

Managing Data Sequencing in Lease Portfolio Management
Accurate data sequencing and entry is integral to effective lease portfolio management and when not done correctly can severely impact the forecasting, data quality and IFRS-16 compliance of your company. This article looks to address the three most prevalent errors in data sequence input when using modern lease management software; Backdating, Adjustment Overrides and Data […]

How Lease Management Systems Solve Key Industry Challenges
Portfolio managers know that data integrity and quality are paramount when managing leased portfolios. Without reliable information, it is impossible to keep track of the numerous complexities within leases and ensure that business expenses (such as rent, outgoings, promotion levies, storage fees etc) are accurately accounted for and that IFRS-16 / AASB 16 calculations are […]

Quantifying the ROI on AI in Lease Management and AASB 16 Compliance
This is an in-depth look into how data extraction software is changing the way lease portfolio managers operate and comply with AASB 16. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lease Reading and Information Extraction Technology is making inroads into how lease portfolios are managed and organised, leading to improvements across the lease management sector to truly make people’s […]

Why Understanding AASB 16 is Critical to Business Success
Prior to January 2019, operating leases were treated as expenses and were not shown on companies’ balance sheets. The new global accounting standard IFRS/AASB 16 required companies to calculate their leases as Right Of Use (ROU) assets and liabilities on their balance sheets, bringing transparency to financial reporting and fundamentally changing the way businesses have […]

Why AI Needs to be a Part of Your Leasing Team in 2022
The commercial leasing sector is rapidly becoming one of the most complex industries to navigate and manage. Even a single lease can contain hundreds of pages filled with niche complexities that have to be fully understood, maintained and accounted for. This coupled with new accounting rules and regulations such as IFRS/AASB-16 (If you are unfamiliar […]

Impact on Retail Leasing from Online Sales: Will It Cut Both Ways?
The rise in permanent store closures across the Australian retail landscape coupled with the prodigious growth in online shopping is creating mounting pressure for landlords to restructure rental agreements and potentially introduce more retail business risk into leasing structures. Welcome to LeaseInfo Group’s first blog post for 2021. This week we will be exploring the […]

Common Retail Leasing Mistakes: Effective Competition Analysis
Understanding your competition is critical to business success. In fact, without an in-depth analysis of your competition and the businesses around them, you will not be able to follow these fundamental marketing strategies that are vital for consistent business growth and performance: Pricing Strategies Delivery Strategies Promotional Strategies Advertising which displays your unique service or […]

PropTech Partnership Creates First Streamlined Digital Property Model
Partnership Between PropTech Trailblazers TCPinpoint and LeaseInfo® Create Australia’s First End-To-End Property Digitisation Model SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 19 OCTOBER 2020 – LeaseInfo® has today announced its new partnership with the retail workflow platform TCPinpoint. The partnership will lead to the creation of Australia’s first end-to-end lease digitisation model for the lease to open process. TCPinpoint provides […]

Common Retail Leasing Mistakes: Retail Lease Negotiation
Lease Negotiation is the final and arguably the most complex part of the site selection process. The average shopping centre lease will cost the retailer well over half a million dollars and sometimes more than one million over the term of the lease including fitout. With that much money at stake it is critical that […]

Common Retail Leasing Mistakes: Analysing Retail Sales Potential
Understanding how to estimate your businesses’ retail sales potential should be an essential tool in any tenant’s skill set. The process by which business owners calculate potential revenue is called “forecasting” and the figures generated can be used to ensure: Business sustainability Bank finance Rent sustainability This article is the second installment of our three-part […]

Common Retail Leasing Mistakes: Retail Site Selection
Selecting the correct site for your next retail location is an extremely complex decision and costly if you get it wrong. Whether you are starting out or expanding your business, once you choose a location you have little flexibility to change it and the site will have a major influence on your retail success going […]

Hyperlocal Economies and Their Impact on Traditional Shopping Centres
COVID-19 has created a time of disruption to all sectors of business, accelerating market trends that were previously dormant and exposing the weaknesses of many common business models. This Darwinian economic landscape has led to incredible adaptation across the industry and for this week’s blog we would like to discuss the changes we are seeing […]

Zimmerman Joins LeaseInfo Group
This September Russell Zimmerman, former head of the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) will be joining the LeaseInfo Team! “I look forward to joining LeaseInfo to assist retailers using the suite of products and services that LeaseInfo provides. With the changes that retailers are facing due to COVID-19 it is more important than ever to […]

How to Manage Variances Between Rent Paid and Lease Contract Values
Billing and paying rent are a crucial part of lease management, yet frequently the invoiced amounts do not match up with the lease contract values. These variances, up until recently, flew under the radar for many landlords and tenants. However, with the advent of a new accounting standard IFRS/AASB-16, all leases over 3 years must […]

The Future of PropTech: A Podcast with Simon Fonteyn
Last week LeaseInfo’s Founder and Managing Director Simon Fonteyn was featured on the PropTech Podcast where he and Kylie Davis discussed the future of retail and commercial leasing as well as LeaseInfo’s newest software platform Accurait®. You can read some key questions and answers below. Differences between commercial and residential leasing Kylie Davis: Simon, my […]

Amount and Contractual Variance in IFRS/AASB16
Welcome to the second edition of LeaseInfo®’s ongoing blog segment dedicated to answering your FAQ’s when it comes to IFRS/AASB16. Last time we started with the basics and explored the steps your business needed to take to become IFRS/AASB16 compliant. Today we will be answering the most common problem our clients report to us when […]

Understanding Rental Determinations
For most retail businesses rent is the second largest expense after staffing. Understanding the value of your lease is critical to rent negotiation, occupancy costs, budgeting, and by extension overall business success. Many businesses do not utilise the options at their disposal when in a disagreement about the value of their lease, one of these […]

National Mandatory Leasing Code for SME’s: Explained
Has your bricks and mortar retail business been affected by COVID-19? In this post, I’ll be taking you through a comprehensive look at who qualifies for the new Federal Government Code detailing rent relief guidelines for commercial property as well as the process of obtaining rent relief. It is important to note that this post […]

5 Tips to Prepare for Lease Negotiation for Retailers
When negotiating a lease, one of the critical skills needed to reach an agreement is the ability to persuade or convince the other party. The art of persuasion is key to a successful lease negotiation as you need to be able to persuade the other party and get them to accept your position in the […]

PropTech is Disrupting the Australian Commercial Real Estate Sector – Are you ready?
For many seasoned commercial property players, the words Artificial Intelligence (AI), property technology and disruption are ‘over the horizon’ terms which are ‘medium to long term strategic concepts’. Right? Absolutely wrong! Over the last decade, certain types of technologies like AI, Blockchain, Internet of Things and Big Data have been infiltrating sectors such as banking, […]

9 Steps to Ready Your Organisation for IFRS 16
The 1 January 2019 date of initial application for IFRS 16 has now come and gone. Depending on your organisations reporting period you are most likely going to be affected in the next six months. Many organisations who meet the Federal Government criteria are on the way to being ready, however if your organisation is […]

Exercising Options Correctly
One of the most common areas where lessees slip up with their lease portfolios is not correctly exercising lease options. They can be tricky and ensuring you have a system and process in place to make sure that these critical dates are not missed is key. In this blog post, we will ensure lease options […]