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3. Who’s Paying Rent & Who’s Not: It is incredibly hard sector leveraging this crisis as an opportunity to re-set
to feel good about much of anything when only 50% of expectations with their retail tenants (and vice versa) in a
the rent is being collected by month’s end. But under- number of ways.
standing relative performance in terms of collections
in total, by segment and by national tenant is a critical One is by securing from the tenant a requirement to regu-
measuring stick when making some of the biggest larly report sales data, and enforcing those requirements
decisions of your career, and this is where shared ana- where such rights already exist. This yields better data for
lytics—aggregated and anonymized across multiple benchmarking metrics like occupancy cost and sales per
portfolios—deliver real value. square foot, and ensures that both sides are looking at the
true picture in terms of the health of the merchant.
4. Rent Relief Request Tracking: The amount of rent
relief requests and the type of details that must be Similarly, with the necessity for landlords to take on more
captured over and over can be mind-numbing and risk by deferring rents for tenants, more landlords are
ripe for making unforced errors. Not to mention the moving to secure percentage rent revenue sharing (based
steps that must occur and various stakeholders con- on reasonable breakpoints). This tightens the alignment
tacted to get this lengthy process to the finish line. of interests in a challenging environment. Finally, this is
Today’s products have tools to track and manage an opportunity for landlords to undo unfavorable lease
these requests. provisions, and secure early lease extensions where it
makes sense.
5. COVID-19 is its Own Dataset: Rent Relief Requests
(once documented and signed) must be implemented While the process of getting there is undeniably painful,
by accounting, who must also make note of the know this: Every crisis does eventually end, old habits
salient details on tenant rent statements. Tracking are broken, new rules are written, and with the passage
requests over time, including payback, and operating of time, the new normal that emerges feeds the next
metrics, like who is open, closed, partially closed, generation of growth and sustenance.
and showing sales strength (or not) requires an
orchestrated effort and a purpose-based approach to The smart companies are investing now in building the
data collection. muscles needed to emerge stronger.

Netting it out: With so much activity going on, now and Mark Sigal is CEO of Datex Property Solutions,
into the future, you need the right tools to see the right makers of Datex BI Portal, a real estate business
data, so you can make the right choices. intelligence system used by real estate portfolio
owners across the retail, multifamily and
Every Sunset is an Opportunity to Re-set commercial real estate segments. Mark has thirty
The crisis is an opportunity to re-think and re-set, years of operating experience, and also invests in PropTech
and we are already seeing (as part of the rent relief startups such as Placer.ai and MerchantCentric at BrightStreet
request negotiation process) landlords in the retail Ventures, where he is a Managing Director.

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