Can I trust what the landlord's broker is telling me? 🔍

Real Housewives fans like me know that Bravo’s editors don't let anything slide… and we love them for it. Heather swears she never said something? Cue the shady music, the cutaway, and the evidentiary reel from three episodes ago where she said that very thing with freshly filled lips and a glass of Sauvy B. 

The fine folks at Bravo don’t just roll tape to set the record straight; their slow-motion replays and neon captions make fans like me squeal with delight at the gotcha! comeuppance from our couches.

Every so often, I wish I had my own room of Bravo editors to review the tapes and alert me when someone is being less than truthful, and I know I’m not alone here. In fact, it’s a sentiment we’ve heard more than once from Pedal Retailers as we start touring spaces.

When you’re walking through a space with the landlord’s broker, and the broker is saying things like…

🗣️ "The HVAC was just replaced last year.”


🗣️ “It’s just a parking garage underneath, so you can run your plumbing lines anywhere.”


🗣️ “You can have exclusive access to the patio area.”

…it’s normal (and smart) to think “am I about to be in a tragic montage of broken A/Cs and endless construction change orders?” In other words, can I trust what this guy is saying?

Here’s the short answer: yes. You can. Here’s why…

📆 Negotiating an LOI and then a lease takes months, and a lot of that time is spent on due diligence. So when a broker tells you the HVAC is brand new, you’re going to have your construction team verify that in a subsequent site visit. You’ll walk the space and do a test fit with your architect. You'll check the parking garage, and you’ll ensure that there’s clear language about the patio in the LOI before you go to lease.

All that's to say, there’s really no point for a landlord’s broker to lie in the moment – while it may smooth over an awkward moment, the truth will be exposed so long as you're exercising regular due diligence throughout the LOI process. (If you're a Pedal Retailer, you can bet your bottom wastewater pipe that you are.)

🤝 Brokers have relationships that extend far beyond this deal alone. Chances are, your broker has known the landlord’s broker for years before this tour, and they’ll work with them again for years into the future. In fact, they're probably going to see one another next month at a winery networking event.

So just like all good relationships built on trust, the costs of fibbing on space tours and losing credibility with another broker far outweigh the benefits of temporarily fooling a retailer. 

Now these points don't mean every word is gospel. Brokers are human and sometimes information is outdated. Sometimes they misunderstand what a landlord will or won’t agree to. Sometimes they’re just repeating the information they’ve been given without second guessing. 

🧐 As the adage goes, trust but verify.

So you don’t need Andy Cohen perched on your shoulder every time you set foot in a vacant storefront, but what you do need is patience. First you take in what the landlord’s broker says, then together with your team and the back-and-forth of the lease process, you do the fact-checking. 

The leasing process is long in part because it needs to be; there’s a lot to figure out and a lot at stake. But you never have to do it alone.

Our job at Pedal is to be your ride-or-die, always in your corner, asking the awkward questions, running the double-checks, flipping over tables, and making sure you don’t end up in your own highlight reel of “should’ve known better.”