When I started Dickstein Real Estate Services in 1995 my goal was to empower Tenants. As tenant advisors, we seek to equal the odds for our tenant/clients when negotiating with Landlords in commercial office and industrial transactions.  After all, Landlords do this every day of the week, while most tenants only deal with real estate at lease expiration.  Our unique niche has been to provide our customers with a higher level of service than that provided by the full-service brokers. In the process we have developed strong and enduring relationships.

        Since Covid, we have all seen a sea-change affecting the entire real estate model.  With Covid in the rearview mirror many companies in 2025 are still working to find ways to bring their employees back to the office.  The popularity of work-from-home and hybrid work scheduling has forever changed the look and viability of the office.

        In addition, over the last decade the cost of construction has more than doubled. This has led us to an entirely new deal making dynamic. A two-tiered dynamic, one short term and the other long term.  For those few stable companies able to make long-term decisions, we find that ten-year or longer lease terms are now the standard where a major buildout is required.

Most companies, however, for a variety of reasons, are not able to make a decade-long decision.  They are facing the reality of having to find an existing space that works for them with little or no construction.  This is a little like looking for a needle in a haystack and our tenants know that we as tenant advisors have the patience and the persistence to help them find that needle.

From the Landlord side, we see winners and losers.  The winners are those Landlords that are located within the oasis of opportunity.  These are properties with little or no mortgage debt that are able to survive by making short term leases, and those Landlords with deeper pockets that are able to invest in their properties for the long term.

  The losers are properties that are for all intents and purposes obsolete.  Think of single user buildings where the prime tenant has vacated, or older buildings where the Landlord can no longer afford to make infrastructure investments needed to compete. 

There are also properties which have been repurposed, such as those under conversion to warehouse or residential, —but these require large investments, nerves of steel and cooperative towns with flexible zoning laws. 

The good news is that we are actively working with a number of companies that are growing here in New Jersey.  In spite of all the negative news, there are still those companies that see a bright future here in the Garden State.  If you would like to learn what these companies know about working with us, why not give us a call to find out why at Dickstein Real Estate Services, OUR DIFFERENCE IS YOUR ADVANTAGE.

Regards,

Lawrence Dickstein