I’ve walked clients through thousands of Manhattan offices, and we all suffer from the same touring amnesia. You tour five spaces Tuesday morning, and Thursday you’re texting me: “Which one had the corner windows?” Meanwhile, I’m rifling through chicken-scratch notes about “good light” and “flexible lease terms,” wondering if those apply to the Park Avenue spot or the one on Sixth.
We’re basically playing a terrible game of telephone with ourselves, and that’s why I’ve fully gone all in on the PropTech craze with tools like ScoutSpace.
Now, I can tag photos, track amenities, and build comparison charts while we’re still standing in the lobby. You get organized data instead of my cryptic shorthand. Real numbers replace vague impressions. And every detail lands in the right column, so you can choose spaces based on cold, hard facts more easily than ever.
How Tenants Compare Spaces Now: Digital First, Decide Faster
Tenants show up differently now for tours. They’ve already done homework on everything from commute times to floor plans to neighborhoods. Makes sense when the subway’s back to 4 million daily riders and everyone’s recalculating their door-to-desk time.
The market feeds this behavior. We’re seeing 8.8 million square feet of new leasing activity (best since 2019) while Midtown availability dropped to 15.5%. Good spaces move fast. Tenants know they need to move faster.
Everything happens digitally before anyone sets foot in a building. Teams share links, comment on listings, and narrow choices from their desks. Decision-makers who can’t make tours still weigh in immediately. ScoutSpace fits perfectly here. I upload everything into one
sortable link where lease terms sit next to floor plans and commute analytics.
We’re closing deals significantly faster because everyone sees the same data at the same time. PropTech at its finest.
The Real Numbers That Make or Break Your Office Deal
Base rent is maybe 60% of the story. Every week, I watch tenants compare spaces on sticker price alone, missing thousands in monthly differences once you factor in the real costs.
Here are some of the key points that can be added to each comparison:
- Effective Rent After All The Math: Base rent plus free months, tenant improvements, escalations, electric, and cleaning fees. Concessions narrowed 11% this year, so that “$65 per foot” space costs $78 when you add everything up. Run the full numbers or get blindsided.
- Column Spacing and Ceiling Heights: It can be helpful to know the column grid before designing layouts. I’ve seen perfect spaces ruined by columns every 20 feet when you need open workspace. Same with ceiling heights—10 feet versus 12 feet changes everything about how a space feels.
- Building Amenities: Everyone advertises the rooftop. Ask about elevator wait times during rush hour, how many bike spots exist, and whether that conference center has any availability. Half the amenities you’re paying for might be permanently booked.
- Who Can Actually Get There: Map 30 and 45-minute commute zones from the building. Your team’s actual addresses matter more than proximity to Penn Station. I’ve seen great deals die because nobody from the team could reasonably commute there.
- Hidden Timeline Killers: Direct lease or sublease? Landlord work or your contractor? What are the required permits? The difference between three months and six months to occupancy often hides in these details.
Where Digital Surveys Change Everything
ScoutSpace turns these comparisons into one digital survey your whole team can access. You scan a summary table—RSF, rent, tenant improvements, free months, move-in timing—then click any listing for the full breakdown. Instead of flipping between emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets, trying to remember which space had which terms, everything lives in one place, and you can sort by whatever matters most without losing track of the details.
The PropTech That Reshapes Shortlisting (and What to Ask Your Broker For)
You just saw how comparing spaces gets complex fast. Now let me show you the tools that make shortlisting manageable. Most tenants don’t know these exist, so they’re comparing properties through blurry iPhone photos while smart teams have everything organized digitally.
Virtual Tourbooks
PDFs are outdated. A URL is created for the tour book, and the link is sent to the client. Instead of dealing with version control or searching through email threads for that one floor plan, you can browse properties, compare specs, and comment directly on listings.
CoStar bought Matterport in February 2025 because they know where this is headed. Tenants want organized presentations with interactive maps and feedback loops, not static documents.
High-Fidelity 3D Tours
Matterport scans create walkthroughs so detailed that you can measure column spacing from your couch. I’m talking true-to-scale dimensions, accurate ceiling heights, and the ability to virtually stand in different corners to check sightlines.
Yes, CoStar’s acquisition means these will be everywhere soon. They help you remember spaces perfectly, though you still need to verify mechanical systems and test the actual light at different times. But here’s what matters: clients who take virtual walks first waste less time on bad fits. Ask me to embed 3D tours right in your tourbook so your CFO can walk through the same space you just toured.
Commute Overlays That Mean Something
“Steps from transit” means nothing. I want to show you heat maps of exactly who reaches each building in 30 versus 45 minutes. Mapbox and similar tools make this standard, but most brokers still write “convenient to Penn Station” and call it a day.
Give me your team’s actual addresses. I’ll show you how that “perfect” Midtown space adds 20 minutes to your Brooklyn team’s commute while the Financial District option works for everyone. Properties that look central often aren’t for your specific workforce.
The ScoutSpace Layer That Connects Everything
ScoutSpace brings Google Docs-style collaboration to commercial real estate search. Remember the nightmare of forwarding forty listing links to your team with “thoughts?” or trying to explain that quirky corner office to someone who missed the tour? That’s gone.
Now your entire team works from one shared survey where everything lives—3D tours, commute analysis, rent calculations. Your CFO spots a red flag in the lease terms and drops a comment right there on the listing. Facilities check the HVAC specs and weigh in. HR maps out transit options for the team. These conversations happen in context, not buried in email chains.
The AI filtering helps you find spaces with backup generators or enough parking, but the real magic is everyone seeing the same picture. It transforms commercial real estate search from a game of telephone into an actual collaborative process where decisions get made.
How Interactive Surveys Benefit Both Tenants and Brokers
Now, let me get a little more specific about ScoutSpace. After running hundreds of tours, I finally found technology that solves the actual problems we both face when comparing spaces.
What You Get as a Tenant
When a good space comes up, you need your whole team to move fast. But instead of digging through email chains and outdated PDFs, you give everyone one ScoutSpace link. All your properties live there. Your CFO reviews lease terms while facilities check mechanical systems, commenting directly on each listing. No confusion about which property is which. No chasing people for feedback.
What makes this actually work: I see your team’s concerns immediately. If facilities flags an HVAC issue at 9am, I’m pushing the landlord for answers by lunch. If your CFO wants different lease terms, I know exactly what to negotiate. Your entire committee works from the same real-time information, so when it’s time to make a decision, everyone’s already on the same page.
While other tenants are still scheduling committee meetings and collecting opinions, you’re ready to move. That’s how you get the good spaces before they’re gone.
What I Get as a Broker
ScoutMagic reads my CoStar exports and marketing flyers, then auto-fills survey fields. I build a professional comparison maybe twice as fast as I normally would, rather than copying and pasting floor plans into Word documents that look dated the second I send them.
The Building Groups feature lets me organize intelligently. I’ll separate Midtown options from Downtown, trophy buildings from value plays, or quick-possession spaces from those needing buildout. You see exactly what category each property falls into without me explaining it repeatedly.
What’s even better, though, is when pricing changes or a space comes off the market, I update once, and everyone sees it immediately. I used to waste hours reformatting surveys, but now I spend that time finding better options for clients.
What You Should Request From My Comparisons
Now that you understand the technology, here’s what you should request from any broker. ScoutSpace handles most of this automatically with built-in summaries and feedback loops, but these are the non-negotiables that keep your shortlist organized and your team aligned.
- Demand One Live Link: I put everything in a single URL with sortable columns: RSF, floor, rent, tenant improvements, free rent, electric, and possession dates. Your CFO sorts by price while your COO filters by square footage, but everyone’s looking at the same data. Multiple PDFs guarantee confusion and wasted time arguing over which version is current.
- Get Both Rent Numbers: I can show face rent and effective rent side by side. Face rent is what landlords advertise. Effective rent is what you pay after factoring in concessions. With concessions tightening 11% in 2025, that gap matters more than ever.
- Map Real Commute Times: I overlay 15, 30, and 45-minute zones for both subway and driving. “Near transit” means nothing if your Jersey team can’t reach it. For site selections this is a great tool for tenants that allows them to understand and visualize a commute. So, get these maps upfront.
- Flag Your Dealbreakers Early: Tell me what you absolutely need—backup power, freight elevator, fiber redundancy, whatever’s non-negotiable. Scoutspace creates custom reports that show exactly which properties have your must-haves, so you’re not wasting time touring gorgeous spaces that can’t work for you. Better to know a building lacks proper power before you’re deep into negotiations.
- Lock Version Control: My ScoutSpace link updates live when pricing or availability changes. Your entire team sees updates immediately, with timestamps showing what changed when. No more email chains where half your team is reviewing last week’s numbers. Everyone reacts to current information, period.
The Bottom Line From This NYC Broker
I’ve shown you what happens when tours blur together and your team argues over conflicting PDFs. I’ve also shown you the fix. The market’s tightening, good spaces move in days, and the old way of comparing options doesn’t work anymore.
The tenants closing deals right now? There is a good chance that more and more of them are using digital surveys, checking real commute times, and getting their entire team aligned before the competition even schedules tours.
The technology exists in tools like ScoutSpace. Use it, or watch better-prepared teams grab the spaces you wanted while you’re still searching for that email attachment.
