What is going on in the single tenant retail space? What are the top things you should negotiate in retail leases? We cover a lot of ground in the retail space with Randy Blankstein, President of the Net Lease Advisory firm The Boulder Group.

You can read this interview here: https://bit.ly/3lPrrw5

What is the difference between N, NN and NNN leases?

In single net properties, which we typically don't see in our sector, but certainly exists in the marketplace, usually the tenant pays rent and the property taxes and that's it. It's not the majority in the sector, but for single net it's rent and property taxes. That's it. For double net, which is the majority of the sector, double and triple net are equal, the tenant pays taxes, insurance, and some type of maintenance. For example, we have some freestanding property, let's use Walgreens as an example, who used to be a double net, but now it's a triple net lease, they converted a while back. When they were double net properties, the tenant was paying the taxes, the insurance and some maintenance. Walgreens carved out roof structure and parking lot as landlord responsibilities, which is pretty common for double net leases. And sometimes there's maintenance obligation of the tenant, and then replacement is the landlord's obligation. And sometimes the landlord has all those responsibilities, but on double net leases there's some type of shared responsibility, or landlord responsibility for those issues. For true triple net leases, the tenant is paying for everything. They pay for maintenance, repairs, taxes, insurance, everything is paid by the tenant, so there's very little to do, and you just pretty much own a property that just gives you a return without having to do any kind of management of the property. It's completely passive.

What are some super important things that you think landlords should definitely negotiate in these kind of leases?

There's 10's of things you can talk to on lease negotiations. But really, you need to focus on two things, because ultimately, a lease is only as good as the credit and financials behind the tenant, and/or the individual's success at this location. Even if it's a large public company, you still need to know that this location is ok, so that you have a strong renewal probability, that's what you're trying to figure out. So what you really need is store sales reporting for this individual location, you really want to know that the rental sales is in line with the tenant average with the market average, and that this is a strong performing location that has a high renewal probability, because that's the biggest risk of that leased property is, will they renew at the end of the lease term. So knowing store sales takes a lot of risk out of it. A lot of lenders want them and a lot of buyers want them. So it's really important to get to store sales. Also for private tenants, franchisees, other people that aren't public, you really need the tenants corporate financials, because even though this location may be doing well, or average, it's still backed by whatever parent is ultimately the guarantee on the lease. So you need to understand the strength of that guarantor, a 25 unit franchisee, some have a great balance sheet, some not so good. So you really need to know where the corporate stands. If I had a choice between the two, I would want my individual store sales first, because even if it's a bad franchisee, if this is their best location, they'll close the other locations first, and yours will still be standing, even if the corporation isn't doing well.

Randy Blankstein

www.bouldergroup.com

www.linkedin.com/in/randyblankstein/

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