Most commercial real estate deals are effectively decided before the lease is ever drafted. The Letter of Intent—not the lease—is where economics are set, leverage is established, and flexibility is either secured or lost.

Many tenants are surprised to learn they’re paying for more space than they actually occupy. That’s because office rents are quoted on a rentable square foot basis—your usable space plus your share of the building’s common areas like lobbies, corridors, and restrooms. While usable square feet refers to the actual “carpetable” space within your suite, rentable square feet includes your proportionate share of these shared spaces, calculated through what’s known as the building’s load factor.

I was recently meeting with a prospect, now a client, and they asked me about "Lease Gotchas" – those lease terms that may not be obvious at first but can become significant pain points…

Most tenants don’t realize that BOMA—the group that sets office measurement standards—was created to serve landlords, not tenants. And every time those standards change, buildings “magically” grow in rentable square footage, even though the walls never move.