Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
Why brokers stop showing your building to tenants
A broker shortlists the building whose availability, rent and terms are current and easy to forward. Here is what makes a commercial landlord drop off a broker's list, and how to stay on it.
The GullySales team · Updated 6 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
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Brokers stop showing a building when it costs them effort to show it. The sheet is out of date, the rent quoted last month has changed, the floor they wanted was let weeks ago, or nobody picks up when a client wants a tour on Saturday. A broker's reputation sits on every building they put in front of a tenant, so they quietly drop the ones that embarrass them.
Why is the broker your first buyer?
Most office and warehouse requirements reach a building through a broker, either a large consultancy or a local firm that knows one corridor well. The tenant tells the broker what they need. The broker pulls up a shortlist from memory, from a group chat, and from the last three sheets that landed in their inbox. Your building competes for a place on that list before the tenant has heard its name.
So the broker is your first customer, and the product they are buying is not the floor. It is a building they can forward in two minutes without having to check anything first.
What does a broker need in order to forward your building?
Strip it to what a broker is asked by their client in the first call.
| What the client asks | What the broker needs from you | What usually goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Which floors are free? | A one-page availability sheet with floor, area and handover date | Sheet is a PDF from last quarter |
| What is the rent? | Quoted rent, deposit, escalation and lock-in on one line | "Call for price" |
| How much is usable? | Carpet area and efficiency, not only super built-up area | Only one area figure given |
| Can we see it? | A named person and a number that answers | Reception passes the call around |
| Who else is in the building? | A tenant list the landlord is happy to share | Nothing shared, so the broker guesses |
| Is the fit-out supported? | What the landlord will fund, in writing | Said verbally, differs per visit |
For a warehouse the rows change. Dock count, clear height, truck access, power load and distance from the highway exit replace the lobby and the lift. The principle stays: every answer the broker would otherwise have to chase should be on the sheet.
How should the availability sheet be kept?
One person owns it. Not "the leasing team", one name, because a sheet that everyone can edit is a sheet nobody updates. When a floor is let, held or re-priced, the sheet changes the same day and the date at the top changes with it.
Send it to your brokers by WhatsApp as a short message with the file, not as an attachment buried in an email thread. Keep the same file name each time with the date inside it, so a broker searching their phone finds the latest one first.
For example, a landlord with a small office building near the Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru has three floors to let. One broker, Anand, shows the building twice. The second time the client is told the third floor has gone, which the sheet still listed as available. Anand's client lost a morning and Anand lost face. He does not drop the building in anger. He just stops thinking of it first, and a building that is not thought of first is not shortlisted.
What happens to a requirement after the tour?
This is the part owners underestimate. A tenant tours three buildings in a week, then goes quiet while the board approves, the lawyer reads the draft and the fit-out team measures. The building that follows up with something useful, a revised layout, a handover date, the draft terms, stays in the room.
Record every requirement from the first call: who asked, through which broker, what area and budget, which floors were shown, and what was promised next. A shared sheet will do. A CRM for commercial property does the same job with reminders attached. What matters is that the next step has a date and a name, and that someone looks at the list on a fixed day each week.
Where your sales process has stages written down (enquiry, shortlist, tour, term sheet, draft agreement, signature), you can see which stage requirements stall at. Usually it is the gap after the tour.
What should the building page on your website do?
It is a reference for brokers and a first look for direct enquiries. Put the address and a map link, floor plates with areas, amenities, power backup and parking, the available floors and a contact who answers. Add photographs of the actual lobby and floors, not renders. A tenant who found you through search should not have to phone to learn how much space is free.
Rules about how commercial space may be advertised and registered differ by state and body and change, so check with your own adviser before publishing terms.
What to do next
Before you spend on advertising, test your own responsiveness. Ask a friendly broker to send an enquiry for your building tomorrow and note how long the answer takes and what it contains. Then compare your sheet with the table above and fill the empty rows.
If you want a second pair of eyes on how requirements reach your building and where they stall, book the free audit. It is a 90-minute call, followed by a written, scored report ranking what to fix first.