Canvassing uncovers rent arbitrage
- Beth Azor is pitching old-school retail canvassing as a way to uncover rent arbitrage: visit leased centers, ask tenants what they pay, and compare. - Her workshops teach leasing teams to gather live, on-the-ground rent intel while prospecting tenants, instead of relying only on asking rents or stale comps. - The tactic targets the gap between market rent and contract rent as Los Angeles retail pricing stays uneven. (cbre.com)
Beth Azor is telling retail landlords and brokers to go door to door, ask tenants what they actually pay, and use the answers to spot rent gaps. (bethazor.com) (montecarlorei.com) Azor markets herself as the “Canvassing Queen” and trains leasing agents to canvass “in your market for prospects for your properties, with leads delivered in real-time.” (bethazor.com) In a February 14, 2024 interview, she described canvassing as knocking on doors instead of “sit[ting] around and wait[ing] for the phone to ring,” then targeting operators with multiple locations because they are already expanding. (montecarlorei.com) The rent-arbitrage angle comes from a basic real estate split: market rent is what similar space should earn today, while contract rent is what a tenant is actually paying under an existing lease. (mmcginvest.com) Those numbers can diverge for years. A tenant that signed before rents jumped, or won free rent and other concessions, can be paying far less than a headline asking rate suggests. (compstak.com) (mmcginvest.com) That is why asking rents are an imperfect guide. CompStak notes that quoted rents can stay high even when landlords lower the real economics with concessions, and Beth Azor’s pitch is to replace some guesswork with field checks. (compstak.com) (bethazor.com) The idea lands in a retail market where pricing is not moving in one straight line. CBRE said in May 2025 that top urban corridors such as Los Angeles still had elevated rents, while other districts faced higher availability and slower growth. (cbre.com) Colliers reported in Greater Los Angeles retail research for the first quarter of 2026 that average asking rents edged up to $2.52 per square foot triple net, led by faster growth in the Inland Empire. (colliers.com) For a leasing team, that means the best comp may not be a glossy brochure or a database entry. It may be the salon, restaurant, or soft-goods tenant already operating three doors down. (montecarlorei.com) (mmcginvest.com) Azor’s broader argument is that prospecting and underwriting start on the sidewalk. In her version of retail leasing, the fastest way to find a tenant — or a mispriced center — is still to knock. (bethazor.com) (montecarlorei.com)
