Commercial real estate prospecting: spot firms before they relocate
By Etienne DouillardUpdated 7 min read
Contents
In commercial real estate, the official search comes late. By the time a company appoints an adviser or publishes a brief, several players are already in the running and the discussion is about price. The useful moment comes earlier: when the company is starting to run out of space, without having said so yet. Commercial real estate prospecting therefore means spotting the changes that come before that need (a funding round, a hiring wave, a new site, an acquisition, a lease break date) and writing about the change, not about available space.
Why does a company move at a specific moment?
Because a move is rarely a project in itself. It is the result of another change: the company grows faster than planned, opens a new business line, acquires a competitor, sets up in a new region or brings teams together after a reorganisation.
These changes leave public traces long before a lease is signed. A funding round shows up in the press, a hiring wave in job postings, a new regional director on LinkedIn. The lease calendar matters too: in France, a standard commercial lease lets the tenant leave at the end of each three-year period, with at least six months’ notice. A growing company approaching a break date has a real decision window.
🎯 An adviser who arrives at this stage is not answering a tender. They help the leader define the need: usable floor area, budget, location, constraints. It is a far more comfortable position than being the fifth adviser consulted.
Which signals announce a move or a new location?
| Signal | What it points to | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Funding round with a hiring plan | Headcount set to outgrow the current premises | Business press, founder’s post |
| Several roles open at the same time | Fast team growth | Job postings, careers page |
| Job postings in a city where the company has no presence | A new branch or a new site | Location-specific job postings |
| Appointment of a regional or site director | A new location in preparation | Job changes on LinkedIn |
| Acquisition or merger | Sites being merged or rationalised | Press, official company notices |
| Big contract or tender won | Need for extra storage, production or office space | Regional press, company posts |
| Leader mentioning lack of space or hybrid working | Thinking under way about how premises are used | LinkedIn posts and comments |
| New address added under “Our locations” | Location already decided, fit-out to come | Company website |
In detail, five signals make the difference.
- The funding round. Money raised goes into hiring first. When a founder announces plans to double the team in two years, the question of space comes up in the following months, often sooner than they expected.
- Clustered job postings. Eight roles open in the same business park where the company had no presence almost always means a new site. We explain how to read this in why a job posting is a buying signal.
- A local leader being appointed. A company often appoints its regional director before signing a lease. They will be the one searching for premises, and they don’t have an adviser yet.
- The acquisition. Two merging companies rarely need two head offices. The topic comes up in the months after the announcement.
- A foreign company arriving. A business preparing to enter a new country needs both temporary offices and a long-term site. See the signals of international expansion.
These signals are not equal on their own. A funding round alone may finance a product rather than hires. A round followed by six job postings in three weeks is a serious reason to write. More broadly, trigger events work the same way in every sector, and the guide to B2B buying signals and their openers lists them all.
How do you turn the signal into an opener?
The industry reflex is to write “we have space available in your area”. The leader has not decided to move yet: they don’t read that sentence as help, but as an advert. The opener that works talks about their growth and what it means, without assuming the decision is made.
Example 1: a funding round
Signal: a 25-person startup in Nantes announces a funding round “to hire 20 people by the end of 2027”.
Opener that misses: “Hi Thomas, congratulations on the round! We help companies find offices in Nantes. We have several floors available, would you be interested?”
Opener that gets a reply: “Hi Thomas, well done on the round. Going from 25 to 45 people in a year is often when the current office starts to feel tight, even before everyone has arrived. Have you already looked at how long your current space can hold out?”
Example 2: a new location
Signal: a logistics company posts seven jobs (dock supervisor, forklift drivers, site manager) in a business park near Lyon where it has no site.
Opener that misses: “Hello, we specialise in logistics real estate in the Lyon area. Feel free to get in touch about your projects.”
Opener that gets a reply: “Hi Sandrine, I saw you’re hiring a whole site team around Saint-Priest. If the building isn’t locked in yet, units with loading docks and enough clear height go quickly in that area. Is the site already secured, or still being looked at?”
👉 In both cases, the good version shows you understood the project, brings a piece of local knowledge, and asks a simple question. It lets the prospect reply without committing.
How do you move from reply to meeting?
In commercial real estate, a reply like “it’s too early” is a good reply. It means the topic exists. The goal is then to become the go-to adviser before the search starts.
- Qualify the timeline: current lease break, pace of hiring, the date when the current space becomes too small.
- Offer something concrete: an overview of available space and rents in the target area, an estimate of the floor area needed for the target headcount.
- Suggest a 30-minute meeting to present it, with two specific time slots.
- Identify the other decision-makers: the CFO for the budget, the COO for constraints, sometimes a partner or investor.
- 📌 Set a follow-up for the right date if the project is further off: the next signal (new hires, a new branch) will be your opener.
We describe this progression in the method from buying signal to meeting.
MeetMagnet spots LinkedIn signals (leaders’ posts, appointments, interactions) and writes the opener from the signal, calibrated by a person. Job postings, the press and company websites are covered by the multi-source option of the Managed plan, detailed on the signal sources page. Announcements of new sites and moves often show up as press signals, and MeetMagnet explains how the detection works.
Which mistakes should you avoid in B2B real estate prospecting?
❌ Offering a property before understanding the need. Until the leader has defined their floor area and budget, a listing is of no use to them.
Waiting for the brief. By the time it exists, other advisers have often helped write it.
Writing to the wrong person. In an SME, writing to the office manager rather than the founder costs you weeks. In a group, writing to head office about a local site does too.
Reading growth without the timeline. A company that has just signed a lease will not move before its first break date, even if it is hiring (in France, the first three-year break, which some leases rule out). Check how long it has been at its address before writing.
⚠️ Using an out-of-date signal. A job posting reposted for a year or a funding round announced eighteen months ago no longer tells you anything. Date every signal.
Frequently asked questions
How do you tell normal growth from a real need for space?
A few hires a year can usually be absorbed in the existing premises. The need appears when the pace changes: a funding round, several roles opened at once, an acquisition, a major new contract. When two of these signals overlap at the same company, the question of square metres almost always comes up.
Who should you contact about new premises?
In an SME with fewer than fifty people, the founder often handles it personally. Beyond that, it is the CFO, the company secretary, the COO or the workplace manager. For a new location, the newly appointed regional director is often the right first contact.
How long before a lease expires should you contact a company?
In France, a standard commercial lease lets the tenant leave at the end of each three-year period, with at least six months' notice. Elsewhere, check the local break clauses. A search for premises takes time: contacting a company well before the notice period leaves room to shape its thinking rather than answer a brief already written.
Are job postings a good signal for commercial real estate?
Yes, especially when several roles are open in the same place, or in a city where the company had no presence. A logistics firm posting eight jobs in an area where it has no site is almost always announcing a new warehouse. Check that the postings are recent and still live.
Etienne Douillard
Co-founder and CEO, MeetMagnet
An engineer and entrepreneur for over five years, Etienne works every week with B2B SMEs on signal-based prospecting.
From intent to booking
MeetMagnet spots who has a reason to talk to you right now, writes the opener that stands out, and a real person keeps it on track.
