How to sell pre-construction offices and retail space

To sell offices and retail space before they're built, you have to show what can happen inside them, not just how big they are. An office buyer wants to see their team working there. A shop owner wants to see their storefront on the street, lit up at night, with people walking past. An investor wants to picture the tenant. Renderings and walkthroughs that show those uses do more than any floor plan with square footage.

Who buys an office or a retail unit pre-construction?

Commercial units have a different buyer from apartments, and usually more than one kind:

• The owner-user: a professional, a small company or a clinic that wants to stop renting and own its space.
• The investor who buys to rent it out to a business, often comparing it with buying an apartment.
• The retailer who wants a storefront in a growing area before it fills up.
• The family business buying a unit for the next generation.

What they share is that they're thinking about use and income, not about where to put the sofa. The material has to speak to that.

Offices: show uses, not square footage

An empty office rendering, white walls and a window, tells the buyer almost nothing. Is it big enough for a team of eight? Can it fit a meeting room? Does it work for a dental clinic? An accountant's practice?

It's more useful to show the same office fitted out for one or two realistic uses:

1. An open-plan office with desks, a small meeting room and a kitchenette, for a company.
2. A professional practice with a reception, two or three private rooms and a waiting area.
3. A clinic or studio, if the layout and the building allow it.

The buyer recognizes their own business in one of them and starts to picture it. A walkthrough lets them check the details: where the light comes from, how the reception connects to the rooms, whether the restroom is in a good place. There's more in office renderings and 3D walkthroughs for offices.

The building matters too. A lobby with reception, elevators, parking, a rooftop or shared meeting rooms are part of what's being bought.

Retail: the storefront and the street

For a retail unit, the most important thing isn't inside. It's the storefront and the street. A retailer wants to know how visible they'll be, how much foot traffic passes, what the neighbors are and how the sign will look.

So the material should show:

• The storefront on its real street, with the real neighboring buildings and sidewalk.
• The unit at night, with the lights on and the sign visible.
• The inside fitted out for a plausible business: a café, a pharmacy, a clothing store, a showroom.
• The relationship with the building: entrance, parking, loading area if there is one.

A retailer who sees their storefront lit up on the corner at dusk is much closer to deciding. More in retail renderings and night and dusk renderings.

Mixed-use buildings: homes above, retail below

Many buildings combine apartments on the upper floors with retail on the ground floor, and sometimes offices in between. Each part has a different buyer, and the material has to serve all of them without mixing messages.

An availability view of the whole building helps: the buyer taps the ground floor and sees the retail units, taps an upper floor and sees the apartments. Each one links to its own walkthrough. See the interactive unit selector.

It also works the other way around. Apartment buyers like to see a café or a market downstairs, and retailers like to know there will be residents above. Showing the building as a whole helps both sales.

The investor: help them picture the tenant

An investor buying an office or a retail unit to rent it out is asking one question: who will rent this, and for how long? The visual material can't answer that with numbers, and it shouldn't try. Any yield or rent figure in the sales material becomes a promise.

What it can do is help the investor picture a realistic tenant. An office fitted as a professional practice, a retail unit fitted as a café, both in their real setting. The investor sees that the space works for a kind of business that exists in that area. That's a much stronger argument than a floor plan. More on investor material in investor presentations.

What not to show

• Uses the building doesn't allow. If zoning or the building's rules don't permit a restaurant, don't show one. Check what's allowed with a local professional.
• A street that isn't the real one. An idealized boulevard with no neighbors hurts trust, especially with retailers who know the area.
• Finishes that aren't delivered. If the unit is delivered as a shell, say so clearly and show the fit-out as an example.
• Income figures in the visual material.

How it works from your side

You send the plans, the specification of what's delivered (shell or finished), the location and the uses you want to target. We agree on which uses to show over a video call. You review progress through links and approve each step. You receive renderings and walkthroughs as links for your website, your brokers and your buyers.

A walkthrough per unit type covers every floor where it repeats, so an office building with three layouts needs three walkthroughs, each one fitted for a typical use. If you're selling a commercial or mixed-use building, message me on WhatsApp at +54 9 11 6193-3176 or email facundocampo100@gmail.com. I work remotely from Buenos Aires, Argentina, in English and Spanish.

Frequently asked questions

Should I show an office empty or fitted out?

Fitted out, for one or two realistic uses. An empty office says little about how it works. Showing it as a company office or a professional practice helps the buyer recognize their own business in it.

How do you show a retail unit so a retailer values it?

With the storefront on its real street, at night with the lights on, and the inside fitted for a plausible business. Visibility and foot traffic are what a retailer looks at first.

Can offices and apartments be sold with the same material?

They can share the building view and the availability map, but each needs its own renderings and walkthroughs, because the buyers are looking for different things.

Do I need a walkthrough for every office?

No. One per unit type is enough for every floor where that layout repeats. Unique units, like a corner retail space, can have their own.