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It’s a fair question. You’re about to sign one of the biggest financial commitments your business will make. Someone offers to help you find the space, handle the paperwork, and guide you through the process. Are real estate agents worth the money? For most commercial tenants in the UK, the honest answer is: it depends entirely on whose side they’re actually on.
And that’s the problem. Because in most cases, they’re not on yours.
The service looks free. It isn’t.
Here’s how the commercial property market works. You call an agent. They show you offices. You pick one. They get paid. No invoice lands on your desk, so the whole thing feels like a free service. But the commission — typically 10–15% of the first year’s rent — is built into every deal. The landlord pays it. And when a single agent represents both the landlord and you, they collect that entire fee while supposedly serving two opposing parties.
RICS, the UK’s property standards body, took this seriously enough to ban dual agency for its members in 2018. The University of Leeds research behind that decision found conflicts of interest were “more likely to be resolved against the party who has the least value to the firm.” That’s you. An SME who signs a lease once every five or ten years is always less valuable than a landlord paying management fees every month.
So when you ask whether it’s worth hiring a real estate agent, the better question is: worth it for whom?
What an unrepresented tenant actually pays
The financial cost of going in without proper representation isn’t theoretical. It shows up in specific, avoidable ways.
Rent is the obvious one. Just 28% of people trust estate agents to tell them the truth. (source levelworkspace.com) — and that scepticism is warranted. Landlord-side agents have no incentive to tell you that the asking rent is above market, that comparable buildings are letting for 10% less, or that the landlord has been struggling to fill the space for six months. A tenant negotiating from that position of ignorance simply pays more.
Then there’s everything stacked on top of rent. Service charges and business rates typically add 30–40% to your headline figure. Average UK office service charges run to £7.20 per sq ft, rising to £12–15 per sq ft in Central London. Most tenants accept whatever the landlord’s budget says without challenge. Yet over two-thirds of service charge disputes that are formally challenged are fully or partially upheld. That’s a lot of overcharging going unchallenged.
Rent-free periods are perhaps the starkest example. Only around one in five commercial leases include any rent-free period at all. But in London’s City market, tenants on five-year leases can typically negotiate up to 12 months rent-free. Landlords actively prefer this over cutting the headline rent — because headline rent drives their property valuation. They’ll give away six figures in free occupancy before they’ll reduce the per sq ft figure on paper. Tenants who don’t know this never think to ask. On a 5,000 sq ft office at £50 per sq ft, that’s £125,000 left on the table from a single missed negotiation.
And at the end of the lease, dilapidations. The average settlement runs to £26.94 per sq ft. On a modest 5,000 sq ft office, that’s nearly £135,000 — often for repairs to damage that existed before the tenant moved in. A properly negotiated schedule of condition at the start caps that liability. Without one, you may legally owe more than you caused.
So are real estate agents worth the money?
A traditional agent — one who also works for landlords — offers real value in finding and introducing space. But their structural incentive is to close the deal, not to get you the best terms. The moment their interests and yours diverge, you’ll lose.
The model that actually works for tenants is different. An office real estate agent representing only tenants has no landlord relationships to protect, no buildings to fill, and no conflicting fees to collect. They search the full market, including off-market space. They negotiate rent, service charges, rent-free periods, break clauses, and dilapidations caps — knowing exactly what the market will bear, because that’s all they do.
The results are measurable. LEVEL Workspace’s case studies show one Manchester client saving £307,476 on a single office deal — £227,760 in rent and £79,716 in dilapidations avoided. Another client saved over £250,000 on their Bristol HQ. These aren’t exceptional outcomes. They’re what competent, unconflicted representation looks like.
The commission for a tenant-only broker comes from the same pot the landlord was already budgeting to pay. If you go unrepresented, the landlord’s agent takes it all. The savings don’t come back to you.
The question worth asking before you sign
Before engaging any agent, ask one thing: do you also act for landlords? If the answer is yes, you already know the limits of the advice you’ll receive. Understanding how a tenant-only office broker works — and what they can realistically save you — takes about ten minutes. On a five or ten-year lease, that’s probably the most valuable ten minutes you’ll spend.
Are real estate agents worth it? The right one, working only for you, absolutely. The wrong one — working for the person you’re negotiating against — is a cost dressed up as a service.
