Your property portfolio is a
Strategic asset.
Most businesses manage their commercial property reactively, responding to lease events under pressure, without a coherent strategy. We help South Africa’s leading organisations change that.
Property is typically the second or third largest cost on the P&L yet it receives a fraction of the strategic attention given to headcount, technology, or sales.
Most businesses approach property reactively. That costs them.
A lease expires in six months. The operations team scrambles to decide whether to stay or move. A broker is engaged. A deal is done under time pressure, without market benchmarks, without a strategic framework, and almost certainly on terms that could have been significantly better.
Our CRE Strategy & Advisory service changes that dynamic. We work with your leadership team to build a structured, proactive property strategy, one that anticipates lease events, exploits market conditions, controls costs, and ensures your property portfolio consistently supports your business objectives rather than constraining them.
Reactive property management
versus strategic CRE advisory.
The difference is not marginal. Over a five-year portfolio cycle, the gap between these two approaches is typically measured in millions of rands.
The reactive approach
The strategic approach
Six outputs that transform
how you manage property.
Every CRE Strategy & Advisory engagement is structured around six core deliverables, each designed to give your leadership team clarity, control, and confidence.
A comprehensive review of your entire lease portfolio — documenting every site, lease term, rental rate, break option, expiry date, make-good obligation, and escalation clause. This gives you, often for the first time, a complete and accurate picture of your total property position and cost exposure.
The portfolio audit is the foundation of every strategy engagement. We examine eight critical dimensions of your property position — producing a baseline that most businesses have never had.
Analysis of whether multiple sites could be consolidated, rationalised, or co-located — identifying potential to significantly reduce your total number of leases and aggregate cost.
Every rental rate benchmarked against current achievable market rates across all nodes — identifying where you are overpaying and by how much.
The true, fully-loaded cost of each site — rental, rates, service charges, parking, utilities, fit-out amortisation, and any hidden costs — presented as a comparable cost per person per month.
A clause-by-clause review of escalation provisions, break options, make-good obligations, renewal rights, and any uncommercial terms embedded in your leases.
Every critical date — expiries, break options, rent reviews, notice periods — mapped across a rolling 36-month forward calendar with recommended action windows.
An objective assessment of each building's grade, specification, ESG credentials, and suitability for your operations, identifying where you may be in a building below your required standard, or paying a premium for grade you don't need.
What is CRE strategy and advisory?
CRE strategy and advisory is the process of aligning a business’s commercial property decisions with its broader business objectives. Rather than treating property as a reactive cost, a CRE strategy defines how your portfolio should be structured, managed, and evolved over time — covering lease planning, space requirements, cost targets, flexibility needs, and long-term property roadmaps. The output is a coherent, financially modelled plan that gives your leadership team clarity and control over one of your largest cost lines.
Who needs a CRE strategy?
Any business that occupies commercial space benefits from a clear CRE strategy — whether you have one office or thirty sites across South Africa. It is particularly valuable for businesses facing growth, contraction, or restructuring; those with a cluster of lease events in the next two to four years; businesses whose property costs represent a material line on the P&L; and organisations that have historically managed property reactively and want to take a more structured approach.
How is CRE advisory different from using a property broker?
A property broker is transactionally focused — their objective is to complete a deal, and in most cases their fee is paid by the landlord. A CRE advisor is strategically focused — our objective is to ensure that any property decision your business makes is the right one, at the right time, on the best possible terms. We are independent, occupier-aligned, and paid directly by you — which means our advice is free of the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the traditional broker model. We work upstream of transactions, not inside them.
How long does a CRE strategy engagement take?
A full CRE Strategy & Advisory engagement — from initial brief to board presentation — typically takes six to eight weeks, depending on the size and complexity of your portfolio. For businesses with a single site or a small number of leases, we can often complete the process more quickly. For large, multi-site national portfolios, additional time may be required for the audit and market intelligence phases. We agree the timeline at the outset so you know exactly when to expect each deliverable.
Do you work with businesses across all of South Africa?
Yes. We advise on commercial property across all of South Africa’s major commercial nodes — including Johannesburg, Sandton, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth. Our market intelligence covers all major metropolitan markets, and our advisory team has direct experience across each of these nodes. For multi-city portfolio assignments, we typically assign a lead advisor supported by a team with specific market knowledge in each node.
Whether your lease is expiring in 6 months or 3 years, the best time to engage a CRE advisor is earlier than you think. Let’s start with a no-obligation strategy call.
Long Street
City Center, Cape Town
South Africa
We negotiate directly with your landlord on your behalf, securing improved rental rates, enhanced TIA, extended rent-free periods, and more favourable escalation and option clause
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We act exclusively in your interest to identify, evaluate, and negotiate the best available premises in your target market, managing the full transaction from brief to handover.
Whether you’re looking to expand your footprint, optimize your current space, or navigate complex lease negotiations, we have the knowledge and experience to help you achieve your goals.
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