If you are an existing company in business for many years, you should have several trusted advisers. They may include your attorney, accountant, an experienced and successful friend or relative, a board member or a neighbor, but there has to be someone on your team right now that you can talk to about your real estate needs. If you have worked successfully with a broker in the past, he might be the ideal person, but it would be difficult to trust an untested stranger to have your interests at heart. If you can form a team within your company of various individuals who have knowledge of differing aspects of the business such as: IT, HR, Finance and Operations you will have a core real estate group that can help you consider the various requirements necessary to satisfy your real estate needs.
Once you can determine approximately what you are searching for with your internal real estate group, you need a qualified broker or consultant to assist you in the process of identifying various potential opportunities and negotiating for the best single solution. Ultimately, a team needs to be formed that can exchange information and work together towards the best final transaction. If the team is formed on an ad-hoc basis, only "as needed", the results will, more often then not, be minimally successful. If, on the other hand, if a team is formed early in the process that will communicate about all aspects of the requirement and prospective solutions, the results have a much better chance of attaining exemplary success. Build a team of experts including a corporate real estate attorney, an architect and a broker in addition to your company's core real estate group, as mentioned above, and you're on the right path.
When deciding on which experts to hire use an interview process and ask each interviewee for the names of the other professionals they would recommend. Also, ask for references and check them out.
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