How do industrial landlords run leasing in-house?
Industrial landlords run leasing in-house by giving one person or team ownership of every vacancy, from forward planning on lease expiries to signed heads of terms, with a set process, pre-approved deal limits and a way to reach occupiers directly. Scayled supports the outreach part: its Campaign builds the list of businesses most likely to lease a specific property, names the person who decides at each, flags the ones showing signs of needing space and writes the emails, so a small in-house team can work a full market. Agents remain a good option for large, specialist or unfamiliar assets, and many in-house teams use both.
- What does an in-house leasing function actually do?
- Who do you need on an in-house leasing team?
- What process should in-house leasing follow?
- What tools does an in-house leasing team need?
- How do you resource occupier outreach without hiring?
- When should an in-house team bring in an agent?
What does an in-house leasing function actually do?
An in-house leasing function owns every vacancy and every lease event in the portfolio. That covers keeping a forward schedule of expiries and break dates, talking to existing tenants about renewal well before the date, pricing and preparing units for market, marketing them, finding and approaching occupiers, running viewings, negotiating heads of terms, briefing lawyers and handing over the unit.
The work splits into two halves. Tenant retention is about keeping the tenants you have, which starts 12 to 18 months before an expiry and is usually the cheapest letting you will ever do. Re-leasing is about filling the units that do come back, and it is where most in-house teams are stretched, because finding new occupiers is the most time-consuming part of the job.
Running leasing in-house does not mean never using an agent. It means the landlord decides how each vacancy is handled, holds the relationships with occupiers directly, and keeps the knowledge of who was approached, who replied and why deals did or did not happen, rather than leaving it in an agent's files.
Who do you need on an in-house leasing team?
The team scales with the portfolio. A private owner with a handful of industrial units can run leasing with the owner as the decision-maker, a property manager or assistant handling viewings and admin, and a property lawyer on call. A mid-size landlord typically has a dedicated leasing manager working alongside the property managers, with the asset manager or owner signing off deals. Larger landlords add regional leasing managers and a marketing coordinator.
The skills matter more than the headcount. Someone has to understand industrial buildings well enough to talk clear height, doors, yards and power with an operations director. Someone has to negotiate and hold the line on terms. And someone has to keep the pipeline disciplined, recording every approach and every reply so nothing goes cold.
Agree an approval matrix in advance: the rent floor, the maximum incentive, the shortest acceptable term and the covenant standard the leasing lead can agree without going back to the owner. In-house teams lose deals when every offer waits a week for sign-off, and gain them when they can say yes in the meeting.
What process should in-house leasing follow?
Start early. Twelve to eighteen months before an expiry, open the renewal conversation and learn the tenant's plans. As soon as a vacancy is likely, decide the strategy for the unit: refurbish or let as is, single let or split, and the rent and incentive range, based on achieved comparables rather than asking rents.
Prepare the pack while the tenant is still in place: an accurate spec sheet, photographs, floor and site plans, and the asking terms. Then launch on several fronts at once. List the unit on the portals for your market, put up a board, tell the local tenant rep brokers you will pay an introducing fee, and start direct outreach to the businesses the unit suits, in batches, best first.
Review the pipeline weekly: businesses contacted, replies, viewings, offers. After four to six weeks, compare the numbers to decide what to change. Few replies points to the list or the message. Viewings without offers points to the price, the presentation or the specification. Keep a standard heads of terms template so that when an occupier says yes, the lawyers can start the same day.
What tools does an in-house leasing team need?
The core is simple. A lease register or property management system that shows every expiry and break date, which might be Yardi or MRI for a larger landlord and a well-kept spreadsheet for a small one. A CRM or shared pipeline to track every occupier approached and every conversation. Accounts on the listing portals for your market. Email on your company domain, and an e-signature tool for heads of terms.
Comparable evidence is the next layer. In markets where it is available, a data subscription such as CoStar gives achieved rents and deal history. Elsewhere, valuers, agency market reports and your own lease records fill the gap.
The gap in most in-house stacks is finding occupiers. Property databases describe buildings and past deals, not which businesses would suit your unit today or who decides at each. That is the job Scayled was built for: finding the businesses around a property and across the market that fit it, the person who decides at each, and the ones showing signs of needing space. Teams with a steady flow of vacancies can run it themselves on a subscription, see pricing, and teams leasing one property at a time can use The Campaign.
How do you resource occupier outreach without hiring?
Outreach is the step in-house teams most often skip, because it is the most labour-intensive. Building a fitted list of a few hundred businesses for one unit, finding a named decision-maker at each, reading for reasons to move and writing personal emails can take a leasing manager days or weeks, on top of the viewings and renewals already on their desk.
For one property, The Campaign from Scayled takes that research off the leasing team. You send the address and a five-minute brief, and Scayled builds the list of businesses most likely to lease the unit, around it and across the market, finds the person who decides at each, puts the ones with dated signs of needing space in the first batch and writes every email in the landlord's voice, so the team can run direct-to-occupier leasing without a new hire. Focused covers the strongest 100 to 150 businesses from US$449 in about three working days; Full covers 250 to 350 for US$749 in about five.
Your team keeps control of the relationship. The emails go out from your own inbox, or, with We Send It For You for US$299 more, from one mailbox your IT adds on your company domain, with replies landing there for your team. The businesses, contacts and emails stay in your Scayled account afterwards, so the next vacancy starts with a head start.
When should an in-house team bring in an agent?
Bring in an agent when the asset or the situation needs what an agent uniquely has. A large distribution centre whose likely tenants are national occupiers advised by tenant reps, a specialist building with a thin pool of users, a market where you have no presence, or a moment when several units come back at once and the team cannot cover them all are all good reasons. So is a soft market, where an agent's live requirement list can be the fastest route to the few businesses that are moving.
Structure the instruction to fit your in-house work. An open agency lets you keep leasing direct while the agent works the unit. If you agree a sole agency, list the businesses your team is already speaking to as exclusions, so a deal you found does not trigger a full fee. Agree how and when the agent reports activity, so your pipeline stays complete.
The best in-house teams treat agents as one channel among several rather than a replacement for their own effort. The landlord knows the building, holds the relationships and runs the process, and calls on an agent where the agent adds the most.
Find Who Will Lease Or Buy Your Property.
Send the address. Scayled finds the 100 to 350 businesses most likely to take the space, the person who decides at each, the ones already showing signs of needing space, and writes every email. One property, one payment, from US$449.