Ask three people who should lease your commercial space and you will get three answers, each recommending what that person sells. Here is the map without the sales pitch. It draws on a longer comparison published by David Siccia Properties, who should lease my commercial property in Vancouver, which is unusual for naming other firms and saying when they are the better choice.
The five options
A national brokerage. Right for full office floors, large-bay industrial and institutional owners, where the tenant will have its own representative. Wrong for a single 1,500 square foot unit, which will not get much of anyone's week.
A local or boutique brokerage. Right for roughly 3,000 to 20,000 square feet, for owners who want MLS exposure and might sell instead. Their job usually ends when the lease is signed.
A commercial property management firm. Right for multi-tenant buildings with regular turnover and for absentee owners. Many cannot list on the MLS and pass leasing to a brokerage, so ask who actually does it.
An owner-side leasing and management specialist. Right for private owners of smaller space, under about 10,000 square feet: street retail, small-bay industrial, strata office, live/work. This is David Siccia's category. He has his own MLS access, which most property managers do not, so the same person lists the space on the MLS, leases it and then manages it.
Doing it yourself. Right for one simple unit with a common use, a local owner and a phone that gets answered. Of 1,216 live Metro Vancouver listings in September 2026, 38% are owner-posted, so you are in good company. The limit is reach: owners cannot post to the MLS or realtor.ca.
How each is paid
Brokerage commissions in Metro Vancouver are commonly 4 to 6 percent of total lease value, or about one month's rent per year of term, usually paid by the landlord. Management firms typically charge 3 to 8 percent of collected rent plus a fee for each new lease. David Siccia's leasing fee is typically the first and last months' rent on the lease. His breakdown of commercial property management fees in Vancouver explains what is normally included, what is extra, and when a net lease lets you recover the management fee from the tenant.
Ten questions to ask before you sign with anyone
1. Who, by name, will work my listing?
2. What is your evidence for the asking rate?
3. Will it be on the MLS and realtor.ca, and who places it there?
4. Where else will it be marketed, and who pays for that?
5. How often will I hear from you, and in what form?
6. How do you screen a tenant's finances?
7. Who negotiates, and who drafts the lease?
8. What exactly is the fee, on what rent, and when is it due?
9. What happens at renewal?
10. How do I end this agreement if it is not working?
Do the vacancy math first
Whichever route you choose, the largest cost is usually the empty months, not the fee. At the Metro Vancouver median, a vacant unit loses about $3,270 of base rent a month. The free vacancy cost calculator shows your own number, and the lease expiry playbook shows how to avoid the vacancy in the first place by starting twelve months before the lease ends.
In BC, leasing and rental management services provided to others for pay are regulated under the Real Estate Services Act and overseen by BCFSA. Ask anyone you engage how they are set up. This article is general information, not legal advice.
David Siccia Properties, 110-2490 Birch Street, Vancouver. David Siccia and John Moody: 37 years of combined commercial experience. 236-998-5841.
*Disclosure: the publisher of this directory also works with David Siccia Properties.*