Two companies can walk into the same building, at the same hour, to negotiate the same space, and leave with entirely different deals. According to Charles P. Laginestra, a Senior Vice President at CBRE, the gap between them rarely comes down to luck. It comes down to information, who holds it, how deep it runs, and how well it is used once the negotiation begins. Having spent nearly two decades in the New York City commercial real estate market, Laginestra has seen a pattern across every deal he has won. “Better information used at the right moment changes outcomes,” he says.
The Difference Between Data and Intelligence
Market data has become a commodity. The reports, comparable sales, vacancy figures, and asking rents are all now available to anyone willing to pull them. Data itself is no longer the advantage it once was. What matters, Laginestra argues, is the layer of intelligence beneath the data, the qualitative understanding that no report contains. “Data tells you what is possible,” he says. “Intelligence tells you what is probable.”
That intelligence takes the form of questions a spreadsheet cannot answer. What is the landlord’s actual vacancy pressure? Which deals have recently closed in a building but have not yet surfaced publicly? What competitive set is a tenant truly being measured against? This knowledge is built through years of relationships and transactions, and it allows an advisor to enter a negotiation knowing not merely what the market reports say, but what is achievable at that moment. In a market where everyone reads from the same data, the edge belongs to whoever understands what that data leaves out.
How Intelligence Shifts the Balance of Leverage
Negotiation, in Laginestra’s view, is fundamentally a contest of leverage, and leverage comes from one of two sources: having options, or knowing more than the other side expects. Data rarely provides either, because both parties usually have access to the same figures. Intelligence provides the second, and it does so precisely because the other side does not anticipate it.
Understanding a landlord’s carry costs, upcoming debt obligations, broader position across a building, or exactly how long a space has been sitting allows a negotiator to operate from a position of strength rather than one of assumption. Laginestra is careful to note that this advantage has nothing to do with aggression. “The best deals I’ve been part of were not won by being aggressive,” he says. “They were won by being prepared in ways the other side did not anticipate.” Preparation of that depth changes the character of a negotiation entirely, replacing posturing with certainty about what the other party can and cannot afford to do.
Why the Advantage Belongs to Those Who Never Stop Watching
Market intelligence, Laginestra stresses, is not gathered once a lease nears expiration. It is built continuously, through relationships, ongoing transaction activity, and tracking how submarkets shift over time. The advisors and companies that maintain real-time visibility into the market are the ones who see opportunities before those opportunities become obvious to everyone else.
By the time information is widely known, the advantage it once carried is already gone. Intelligence, in other words, is perishable. “In a market like New York City, the difference between a good deal and a great one is rarely about what is on the table,” he says. “It’s about what you knew before you sat down.”
The advisors who consistently win are not the ones with the best data. They are the ones who understood what the data would eventually say long before it said it. To learn more about the role of market intelligence in commercial real estate, connect with Charles P. Laginestra on LinkedIn.
