What If You’re Paying More Than the Tenant Next Door?
By Chris Rohrer, Broker & Pete Kostroski, Broker | Rokos Advisors
For most businesses, office rent is one of the largest ongoing expenses. yet many tenants don’t realize they may be overpaying — or missing opportunities to improve lease terms — simply because they haven’t benchmarked their rent against the market.
In a shifting landscape where landlords are becoming increasingly flexible to attract and retain tenants, understanding how your lease compares can give you a major strategic advantage.
What Benchmarking Really Means
Benchmarking your rent goes beyond just looking at your base rate. It’s about understanding the full financial impact of your lease, including the concessions you received (or didn’t), how your operating expenses are structured, and how those costs stack up against comparable deals in the market. When done right, benchmarking helps you evaluate the net effective rent—the actual cost of your lease over time once you factor in things like tenant improvement allowances, rent abatement, escalations, and other negotiated terms.
How to Evaluate Your Position
Start by reviewing your lease in context. Are you in a comparable space, in a similar building class, with market-aligned terms? That means looking at properties of similar quality, location, and size that have recently leased. Market comps provide the clearest picture of whether you’re in or out of alignment. Then, dig deeper into the terms that impact your flexibility. Do you have rights to expand, contract, or sublease? Is your escalation rate higher than the market norm? Are you locked into terms that no longer reflect your business’s needs or the current environment?
Why It Matters Mid-Lease
Most tenants wait until a lease is close to expiration to assess their position—but by then, their leverage may be reduced. Benchmarking mid-lease can uncover meaningful gaps between what you’re paying and what the market offers today. In some cases, it could even open the door to renegotiation or early restructuring—especially if your landlord is facing vacancy pressure. Even if a negotiation isn’t possible right away, having this insight early allows for proactive planning and stronger positioning when renewal time comes.
Take a Strategic Approach
Benchmarking is not about simply reducing rent, it’s about aligning your real estate strategy with the realities of the market and the goals of your business. When you have the right data and insights, you’re in a much better position to secure lease terms that reflect your space needs, budget, and future growth.
If you haven’t evaluated your current lease against the market, now is the time. A short conversation can uncover opportunities to create flexibility, reduce costs, or plan more confidently for what’s ahead.
Wondering if your lease still makes sense? Rokos Advisors can help you compare, renegotiate, or plan ahead — based on where the market is today.
Rokos Advisors is an award-winning Minneapolis - St. Paul based commercial real estate/tenant representation firm specializing in helping businesses find the perfect office or industrial space for their company.