Corporate Real Estate is underestimated

Nobody reads the dilapidation clause until it's too late.


Underestimating the impact of wrong real estate decisions on your portfolio and operations is one pattern I keep seeing in corporate real estate. But it's not the only one.

Three things get consistently underestimated when companies think about what a CREM lead actually does:

It's people management at every level.
You're leading a group of architects, project managers, lawyers, brokers, contractors, and internal stakeholders (often across countries) simultaneously. Getting that coordination right requires you to understand the work. And the targeted output.

You need to know what to protect.
Real estate commitments run 5, 10, 15 years. Extension options, build-outs and specification books, dilapidation clauses, break rights, rent review mechanisms…the terms agreed today define flexibility for a long time. An experienced CREM lead knows which concessions are negotiable and which ones will cost the business far more than the saving was ever worth at signing. That judgment doesn't come from a checklist.

The margin for error in multi-million projects is limited.
A few weeks of delay. A scope assumption left unchallenged. A contractor clause nobody questioned. Any of these can be easily higher than the entire project fee you reserve for expert guidance. Someone who has navigated this before will typically save that fee before the project is halfway through.

The companies that understand this look for someone to protect decisions worth a considerable amount. That’s what real estate is.

And the ones that don't always find out eventually.


#corporaterealestate #crem #realestate #portfoliostrategy