Know how

Letting management

Project development draws on the expertise of many demanding disciplines in parallel. If successful letting and subsequent sale are to be guaranteed, sales-related aspects must be taken into account at a very early planning stage. After all, the project needs to be tailored to the future user as precisely as possible. The same is true of paying attention to the capacity for alternative uses as an essential quality criterion of the property with regard both to sales and to portfolio management.

During project development Cremon Consulting can act as a knowledgeable sparring partner whose conceptual expertise can have a lasting positive influence on a commercial property's success.

Often the reason a property in the portfolio has significant vacancy rates independent of the market situation can no longer be identified from within a company. A trained, unprejudiced external eye can shed light on the problem. A new, tailor-made sales concept can then reposition the property successfully on the market.

Cremon Consulting's chief goal when working with clients is to develop an individual catalogue of measures suited to the existing property or construction project and to implement it systematically. To this end, we deliberately seek dialogue with real estate brokers and consistently analyse what we learn. But, especially in a difficult sales environment, experience shows that more is needed than incentives in line with the market. It should be remembered that the WALT to be generated is not a flexible quantity but a guideline absolute value.

The goal of working with Cremon Consulting can be summarised simply: maximum letting quotas and rent levels plus reduced vacancy rates.

Landlord representation

Stable cash flow and low tenant fluctuation, particularly in the case of large and very large office and commercial properties, do not just result from long leases. Successful regular communication with tenants is another part of tenant support. That is why "one face to the customer" is an explicit tenet of Cremon Consulting's services. This attitude is one of our central tools in the area of landlord representation.

Tenants have all kinds of concerns. They may be of a technical, administrative, legal or commercial nature. Yet no tenant wants to have to get in touch with lots of different departments to get a response to legitimate concerns.

At Cremon Consulting we undertake as a matter of course to sort out all such concerns with the relevant departments appropriately and professionally behind the scenes. The tenant then receives a consolidated response from a single person. Nothing hinders tenant satisfaction more than a cacophony of different voices and answers that are far too long in coming.

Looking after tenants comes down to looking after cash flow. It belongs at the heart of landlord representation. Just as self-evident is regular consultation with the client and provision of reliable reporting.

Investment advice

Commercial property purchases and sales are extremely sensitive – for both parties in the investment deal. For the purchaser, especially, one issue cannot be conclusively clarified: How will the product perform against competitors in a market environment different from today's? Will the cash flow result remain realistic even when is the property is relet? Or perhaps: How can the remaining vacant units be let as quickly as possible?

Intensive due diligence from the commercial, legal and technical standpoints will answer most of the questions. But who will be prepared to point the finger at possible weaknesses? And yet this is the most important information the purchaser can have, because the investor will be in possession of the property for years to come.

Cremon Consulting regards itself as an independent, external sparring partner in the due diligence process.

We analyse the marketability of a product without being influenced by internal company motives or third-party interests. Are its floor plans, fittings and overall building concept – technically and architecturally – sustainable? What about rental figures for the developed area? Does the space lend itself to alternative use or is its design too individual? These are just examples of questions that have to be asked not only about one-tenant buildings but also, and especially, about properties with multiple tenants. This is where Cremon Consulting's long experience and focused expertise pay dividends, guarding against unwelcome surprises later on.

After all, the quality of an investment is only as good as the product's weaknesses as known at the time of purchase.

Asset management

Concentrating all responsibilities under one roof – that is our asset management motto.

Taking over letting management also entails handling of property and facility management and oversight of further external service providers. It is imperative to cultivate streamlined processes in highly diversified structures if a portfolio's potential for asset appreciation is to be maintained and increased. Unnecessary conflicts of interest can only hinder a portfolio's performance.

Cremon Consulting offers investors and family offices interested in outsourcing asset management full identification with the respective commercial product in question as a fundamental precondition for assuming the role of principal. All those involved in the process have many years of comprehensive know-how acquired in looking after a diverse Germany-wide commercial portfolio of a magnitude of approx. one million square metres.

Logistics properties

In recent years, the logistics real estate asset class has increasingly become the focus of investors. The global coronavirus pandemic has emphatically demonstrated the high systemic importance of this part of the real estate industry. An increasing shortage of supply, especially due to the space requirements of the steadily growing e-commerce sector, and a further increase in demand for logistics real estate among investors and funds are the logical consequence of these developments.

Since April 2020, the founder of Cremon Consulting, Barbara M. Riewe, has also been Managing Partner of EUROPA-CENTER Logistikimmobilien Projekte GmbH & Co. KG, based in Hamburg. Together with a further managing director, she is responsible for the marketing of all logistics projects of the EUROPA-CENTER Real Estate Group as well as the further active expansion of this real estate division - both Germany-wide and, in the medium term, internationally.

The logistics projects include the EUROPA-CENTER Logistics Park Bremerhaven covering a total of approx. 18 ha, of which approx. 10 ha are still to be developed and marketed (as of 01/2021). The company also continues to grow systematically through the acquisition of new, sustainable logistics locations on a scale of approx. 5 ha or more. The logistics units are developed, marketed and sold according to traditional project development principles.

For further information please see: www.ec-logistik.de