Indispensable, on the whole

When a company leases, say, 3,500 sqm at one or another building, Eurobuild Poland and other publications are informed about it via press release, usually by one of the agents involved in the transaction, whether they are the tenant's representatives or the developers'. Often, this means we receive two separate press releases regarding the same transaction, and on each one, it is invariably the case that one piece of vital information is missing: the name of the other agents involved in the deal. "Don't mention the competition" seems to be the golden rule.

Professional and ethical

In general, developers will claim that agents, more than anyone else, know their way around new market trends, as they work closely with both themselves and tenants and can offer an in-depth knowledge of the products potential tenants are on the look out for. But what of the other expectations developers have of agents? "The ideal agent should meet three criteria: to begin with he/she should possess a thorough knowledge of the market and be completely aware of the needs of his/her clients. Next, he/she must be ethical and lastly, their work should not simply end by bringing client and developer together: they should play an active role in the negotiation process," says Zygmunt Chyla, Head of Leasing at TK Development. For Jarosław Gorzko of Skanska Property Poland, professionalism and loyalty are an agents' most important attributes. He goes along with Chyla's criteria but expands on them as well: "What I mean by being professional is that an agent should not only be a salesman but also first and foremost a professional adviser, who assists both parties with his/her comprehensive knowledge. Agents who do no more than send a fax and visit the building with the client are not professionals," he says, adding that, "the virtue of loyalty wouldn't normally permit an agent to represent a number of competing projects either." "For many agents, mediating in negotiations is all about beating the bottom lease rate," says another developer, who didn't want his name mentioned.

When ethics come second

Zygmunt Chyla who's dealt with agencies for a number of years now, recounts only one incident with a dishonest agent, where the latter, responsible for leasing at his retail centre, went and represented a competitor. "We learned about the whole thing from the press," he says, "and that indeed was the last day of our work together." The developer who chose to remain anonymous, when talking to Eurobuild, came up with a longer list of agents' duplicitous behaviour, as he sees it: "They scour the small print on lease agreements, to try and find something that'll allow them to be released early from a project and poach major tenants from their buildings. Mediating when some developers use financial inducements to encourage potential tenants to sign lease agreements, also suggests a lack of principles and such incidents have occurred quite recently here in Warsaw." Other examples of agents' less-than-honest manoeuvres, include those when an agent operating in Warsaw, lured tenants to a retail centre by concealing the project's real level of occupancy. "The client was persuaded that the centre was almost entirely leased when in fact it was practically desolate," says Zygmunt Chyla.