November 10, 2026 • At ULI’s Fall Meeting in October, I heard the same thing in a dozen conversations: leasing velocity is the key to best-in-class leasing performance and NOI growth. The urgency behind these conversations was clear when an institutional owner told me, during our recent negotiation of a regional bank lease, “Eyes are on this deal. It needs to move fast.”
And indeed it did.
But moving fast and leasing velocity are two different things. Moving fast is about turning lease drafts in hours instead of days or weeks. Leasing velocity is about more than moving fast. It’s about eliminating friction from the leasing process. This distinction matters because speed and velocity are deceptively similar, but it takes a lot more to achieve leasing velocity than it does to move fast.
What Separates Fast-Closing Operators from Slow Ones
The operators that consistently move leases from LOI to execution in record time are not achieving this by sprinting to turn documents at the speed of light, no matter what the cost. Their deals move fast because the right questions were asked early, at the LOI stage, before anyone was invested in a structure that couldn’t hold up. Because decision-makers were in the room with the authority to make decisions in real time, rather than days or weeks later. Because the negotiation was about the deal, not the performance around it.
Slow deals aren’t slow because the issues are harder. They’re slow because the process creates friction at every stage: ambiguous LOIs relitigated during lease negotiation, approval chains that weren’t identified until they became bottlenecks, positions held for three rounds because no one wanted to move first.
In a market where leasing velocity directly impacts value, that friction isn’t just frustrating. It’s expensive.
So here are the strategies that my clients and I use to maximize leasing velocity:
Avoid “The LOI Trap”
In my recent The LOI Trap post, I wrote about what happens when the LOI is treated as a formality rather than as a stress test to make sure the deal is on solid footing before lease negotiations begin. The stress test approach means that you can count on a leasing process that won’t grind to a halt because difficult issues were overlooked at the LOI stage. You won’t have to worry about delivery conditions that no one budgeted for, or vague exclusives that could prevent the tenant’s primary use.
Overcome Negotiation Theater
In Negotiation Theater, I described recent lease negotiations where I had to work around the performative negotiating tactics of my counterpart. They certainly weren’t helping their client by throwing sand in the gears and making the negotiation tedious, expensive and risky. Unfortunately, most of us have endured this, and it comes in different flavors: the loudmouth, the bully, the drama queen. Some of my workaround strategies include enlisting my client and our broker to reach out to the other side’s client and broker, thus avoiding the other attorney entirely, or as much as possible. When the offending behavior exceeds ethical boundaries, I let them know that in no uncertain terms.
Know Who Owns the Deal
Make sure the decision-makers on your team and the lines of communication to them are clearly defined. Communicate often so everyone is aligned and aware each step of the way. That greases the gears so decisions can be made and answers received in hours rather than weeks. Treat each day of delay as a per diem bottom-line loss for both parties.
The Question for Q4
As you look at your pipeline for the remainder of the year, where is the friction in your current deals coming from? Is it the deal itself — or the process you’re using to close it?
If you’re evaluating how your leasing process is working — or looking for outside counsel on a deal in the pipeline, call us today. You can’t afford not to.