What a pre-leased asset really buys you

A pre-leased property promises something rare in real estate: income from day one. But the yield printed in a brochure is only as reliable as the lease behind it, and the lease is only as reliable as the tenant paying it.

Start with the tenant, not the building. Who is the counterparty, how long have they operated from this location, and what does their business actually depend on? A corporate back office with a signed multi-year mandate behaves very differently from a single-location retail tenant whose revenue lives and dies with one street.

Read the lease the way an owner would. Lock-in protects your income; escalation protects your yield over time; the notice and renewal clauses decide whether the tenant can quietly walk away at the worst moment. A 7% entry yield with no escalation can be worse over a holding period than a 6% yield that steps up on schedule.

Then look past the income to the asset itself. Age and specification decide maintenance surprises; title and approvals decide whether a future sale is smooth or stuck. And always underwrite the exit: pre-leased assets trade on the strength of the rent roll, so ask who the realistic next buyer is before you become the current one.

We source pre-leased assets across the range — from compact showrooms to large warehouses — and we would rather walk away from a headline yield than recommend an asset we wouldn't hold ourselves. If the numbers only work on the brochure page, they don't work.