The world’s first platform for renting offices without a broker. How does it work?
The hotel and apartment rental markets got technological solutions that significantly facilitate finding and booking places to stay. The aforementioned solutions are, of course, Booking and Airbnb. Until now, however, there was no comprehensive tool that would allow one to easily find an office or a warehouse. The first technological solution that makes this possible is Realko24, a platform created in Poland.
The platform’s principle of operation is very simple: a tenant determines what kind of space he is looking for, and then he is contacted by a landlord who has got an offer that meets the tenant’s expectations. Why has this type of solution for the office and warehouse markets not been created before, when Booking and Airbnb operating on a similar basis have been enjoying great popularity for years? The reasons may be seen, among others, in the very structure of the commercial real estate market.
Business space transactions are among the largest in the entire real estate spectrum. We are talking, among others, about long-term contracts concluded with international corporations that need many thousands of square meters of space. Huge money is involved. Thus, it is not surprising that this market has been controlled for decades by a small group of global brokers. Their annual turnover is in billions of dollars.
– In all this situation, hardly anyone paid attention to the fact that the broker is not really an indispensable party of the transaction. This is a helper who, first of all, gets far too much of the transaction value, and secondly, can be safely replaced by technology. Nowadays, we have the possibilities to do this – says Konrad Okła, the creator of the Realko24 platform, which connects tenants with landlords on the commercial real estate market.
Reversal of the rental process
Realko24 is a user-friendly solution that significantly simplifies the process of renting office, warehouse or commercial space. Moreover, it is the first such tool in the world. The slogan “we are changing the rules of the game on the commercial real estate market” is not just an empty slogan.
A tenant who is looking for space for rent fills out a form regarding his needs: he specifies how many square meters an office, a warehouse or retail space should have, in what area it should be located, what price he is interested in, etc. In the next step, tenants browse through personalised offers, tailored to previously entered expectations and needs. There are no ready-made rental offers in the Realko24 database, because they usually become outdated quickly. Instead, there is a database of people who have offers for their buildings and can provide them at any time.
In short, we are talking about reversing and thus simplifying the rental process. It is the landlord who, matching the expectations set out earlier by the tenant, initiates contact and proposes a meeting. As a result, the tenant does not have to browse all the offers on his own or rely on the broker’s proposals, which often turn out to be poorly matched.
Commercial real estate without a broker
– In the traditional model of searching for space, it is a broker who shows a tenant a property. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the agent will help his client to choose the best one. Instead, he will often recommend the ones on which he will earn the most or will favor the owners of buildings with which he has the best relationship. The tenant is usually unaware of this because he trusts the agent and believes that he gets the most favorable and best suited offer. Meanwhile, such a thing is possible only thanks to technology – says Konrad Okła.
As the creator of Realko24 points out, the technology not only guarantees that only matching tenants and landlords meet, but also significantly reduces transaction costs. When a contract is signed between a landlord and a tenant, the landlord pays 1% of the transaction price (the commission for the broker is usually 5-10%). This value is the same for every landlord, regardless of the city, type of building or size of the area. The tenant, in turn, does not bear any costs, and thanks to a lower commission has a chance to get better lease terms.
Realko24 is a Polish company from Warsaw which gradually covers commercial areas in other countries. You may already use Realko24 to rent an office, a warehouse or retail space in New York, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Sydney and many other cities around the world – and the building base is still growing.
