I work almost exclusively on the tenant side but some of the most useful things I’ve learned about representing tenants well came from paying attention to what actually moves an owner.

Early on, it’s tempting to think of a deal as tenant vs. owner. It’s not. It’s translation. It’s understanding the needs of each side so that a good deal can be hashed out. No one wants to part with their money so how do we get deals done? It takes patience and understanding of each side’s needs.

A tenant wants predictable rent, flexibility, and terms that protect their business as it grows. An owner wants certainty: a reliable tenant, a clean credit story, and confidence that the deal in front of them won’t fall apart in month six. They also want an easy tenant. Those aren’t opposing goals. They’re just spoken in different languages.

What’s making that translation more important than ever right now is what’s happening on the debt side. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, roughly $875 billion in commercial mortgage debt (about 17% of the entire outstanding market) is scheduled to mature in 2026 alone. Much of that debt was originated in between 2019 and 2022 at rates in the 3–4% range. That debt is maturing into a market where new financing runs closer to 6–7%. On a $10M loan, that means well over $200,000 a year in additional debt service that the owner needs to account for (before even factoring in that property values in some areas have softened).

This plays out differently depending on the building. A single-tenant owner’s entire refinance case rests on one lease:  the strength, the term, and the credit of that one tenant is the whole story a lender sees. A multi-tenant owner is underwriting a blended risk picture, but a single and strong, long-term tenant in the mix still meaningfully anchors that story for a lender and can offset softer space elsewhere in the building. Either way, tenant quality and lease durability have become part of how an owner’s lender views the deal, not just a line on the rent roll.

I had a conversation recently with a landlord John in the Bay Area that captured this perfectly. We were working through a build out assessment for a veterinary tenant and analyzing power needs. In talking to the engineers, we realized the existing HVAC system wasn’t going to support the clinic’s needs; the power was going to be overly taxed with a larger HVAC and the equipment a veterinary tenant needs. A power upgrade was going to slow things down such that we’d all be dead before the vet would be able to open her practice. We needed a more efficient HVAC system instead, and that comes with a large price tag. Rather than treat this as a cost to avoid (as many owners would), this owner offered to replace the unit outright! I was a bit stunned. And this happened because this owner understood he wasn’t just fixing an HVAC problem, he was securing a ten-year tenancy from a stable business model that will grow over the years. That’s the kind of investment that pays for itself many times over in a long-term deal, and this owner understood that immediately so rather than put that cost on the tenant, he invested in the tenant instead.

Not every owner does get this. I think a lot of brokers aren’t making that case clearly enough to the landlords they work with. They see a landlord improvement request and think, “that’s a cost the owner won’t want to spend.” Instead, they could shift the discussion and walk the owner through what a ten-year veterinary lease (or any long-term, credit-strong tenant) is actually worth to them: net operating income (NOI) stability, lease term that supports refinancing, and a tenant who isn’t going anywhere. That conversation doesn’t happen automatically. It has to be made. And it seems it’s not being made enough.

The lens I try to bring to every negotiation, even while I’m fighting hard for my tenant’s interests:

1. Understanding what an owner is really solving for: stabilizing NOI ahead of a refinance, filling a vacancy before year-end, or reducing risk on a recent purchase.
2. Framing my tenant’s business in terms that answer that question directly like growth trajectory, credit strength, staying power. I’m not just listing what my client wants at the start.
3. Knowing when to hold a position and when a concession costs my client little but buys real goodwill, and real flexibility by the other side. I know when to talk to a client and suggest that pushing for less at the outset is sometimes the better approach.

The best deals I’ve closed weren’t the ones where I out-negotiated an owner. They were the ones where the owner walked away believing my tenant was the safest, strongest credit in their stack because I understood their motivations well enough to make the case for my client in language they were already listening for.

Representing one side well doesn’t mean ignoring the other. It means understanding them well enough to advocate better so that both teams walk away happy with a path to profitability for the tenant and the owner.

References

Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) — 2026 CRE/multifamily loan maturity data ($875B, 17% of outstanding debt) — https://www.mba.org

Reed Smith, “The Debt Maturity Wall and 2026 Wave” — https://www.reedsmith.com/our-insights/blogs/real-estate-legal-update/102mijo/the-debt-maturity-wall-and-2026-wave-challenges-and-opportunities/

Banyan Commercial Capital, “The 2026 CRE Maturity Wall: What Commercial Property Owners Need to Know” — https://banyancc.com/blog-maturity-wall-2026.html

Kidder Mathews / Investing in CRE, “Commercial Real Estate Debt Maturity: 2026–2028 Outlook” — https://investingincre.com/2026/03/13/commercial-real-estate-debt-maturity-2026-2028-outlook/