Most investors analyze the property before they buy. But what if you could also see which tenants already want to be in that market before you make the investment?
In this episode, Aviva Sonenreich and Rafael Weiss, founder and CEO of Sytes, break down how tenant expansion data can help investors and developers make better commercial real estate decisions.
Rafael explains how Sytes reverses the traditional property search by showing where tenants are actively looking to expand. They discuss how investors can use that demand data before acquiring or developing a property, which retail categories are competing hardest for space, and where Rafael is seeing demand grow across retail, flex, and industrial real estate.
Key Topics Discussed
- How to see where tenants want to expand before buying or developing commercial real estate
- Using tenant demand data to evaluate potential acquisitions and development sites
- Why Rafael avoids buying in markets where he cannot see enough tenant demand
- How Sytes matches landlords, developers, and brokers with expanding tenants
- Where coffee, convenience store, and chicken concepts are competing hardest for real estate
- Why Texas has become a major battleground for expanding chicken concepts
- The growth of wellness concepts and their demand for retail and flex space
- What Rafael is seeing from industrial and IOS tenants
- How tenant expansion data can reveal demand before it becomes obvious to the broader market
- Why knowing potential replacement tenants can reduce acquisition risk
- How Rafael uses tenant demand when evaluating his own commercial real estate investments
- New tools for monitoring tenant demand at the individual property level
- The commercial real estate lesson Rafael learned from his father about recourse debt
About the Guest
Rafael Weiss is the CEO and founder of Sytes, a commercial real estate technology platform that helps landlords, developers, brokers, and tenants connect based on real-time expansion demand. In addition to building Sytes, Rafael develops and manages commercial real estate through JW Advance, giving him firsthand insight into the challenges of site selection, tenant acquisition, and development. His work focuses on using technology to make commercial real estate transactions faster, more efficient, and more transparent.
About the Host
Aviva Sonenreich is the Managing Broker and Owner of the Warehouse Hotline, a Denver commercial real estate brokerage specializing exclusively in industrial properties. She leads the firm’s brokerage operations, negotiates industrial sales and leasing transactions, advises clients on acquisition and disposition strategies, and oversees the company’s marketing and business development efforts. Through Commercial Real Estate Secrets, she interviews leading investors, brokers, developers, and industry experts to provide actionable insights on commercial real estate investing, brokerage, leasing, development, and market trends.
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