Apex Real Estate Services · DRE #01422904 · CCIM-Led
Hemet, CA · (951) 977-3251
Commercial tenant representation in the Inland Empire means one broker works only for you — the tenant — through the search, the tour, the letter of intent, and the lease. Apex is a CCIM-led tenant rep brokerage covering industrial, retail, office, and land requirements from Ontario and Fontana to Hemet and the Coachella Valley.
Customarily the landlord pays your tenant rep broker out of the lease, by agreement. Structure varies deal to deal, so it is set in your engagement agreement and confirmed in writing before any letter of intent. Under California Civil Code §2079.16, a broker who represents the tenant only is still not the landlord’s agent, even when the landlord pays.
That statutory line beats any slogan. Under §2079.16 a buyer’s agent — and California treats a commercial tenant as the buyer — “is not the Seller’s agent, even if… the agent may receive compensation… in full or in part from the Seller.” You are owed a fiduciary duty of utmost care, integrity, honesty, and loyalty.
Tenant representation is advisory bought by the occupier. A commercial tenant broker defines the requirement, surveys the whole market rather than one building, runs the tour, negotiates the LOI, and works the lease to signature. The listing agent does that in reverse — a seller’s agent “acts as the agent for the Seller only.”
| Question | Tenant Rep Broker | The Building’s Listing Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Whose agent, legally | Yours — fiduciary duty of utmost care, integrity, honesty, and loyalty (§2079.16) | The landlord’s — “acts as the agent for the Seller only” (§2079.16) |
| Inventory shown | Whole market, plus sublease and off-market options | The buildings that agent is listing |
| Your bargaining position | Protected and used on your behalf | Known to the party paying them |
| Who typically pays | Customarily the landlord, out of the lease — structure varies, set in writing | The landlord, under the listing agreement |
| Benchmarking | Comparable deals, concessions, and days on market across submarkets | The asking rate on that building |
Civil Code §2079.13 defines “sale” to include “transactions for the creation of a leasehold exceeding one year’s duration,” with “Buyer” including a lessee and “Seller” a lessor (AB 2992). So California’s agency-disclosure regime governs your lease. Under §2079.14 your broker must deliver that disclosure “as soon as practicable before execution of a buyer-broker representation agreement.” Paperwork precedes touring.
Civil Code §2079.21 (AB 1289) bars a dual agent from disclosing either party’s confidential information without express permission — “facts relating to the client’s financial position, motivations, bargaining position, or other personal information that may impact price.” That is exactly what a tenant needs advocated, and the Legislature wrote the argument, not a broker.
Every Apex commercial real estate tenant rep assignment runs the same six stages, from a small Hemet retail suite to a Fontana big-box distribution requirement.
Base rent is what tenants fixate on and landlords defend hardest. The rest of the deal is where a tenant rep earns the assignment: free rent, tenant improvement allowance and delivery condition, escalations, renewal and expansion options, caps on controllable operating expenses, sublease rights, early termination, retail exclusivity.
Concessions are real and dated. Per CoStar’s Inland Empire Industrial Market Report, Q1 2026 (data as of 4/1/2026): “Leverage remains with occupiers,” and “one to several months of free rent is common for new, larger-sized leases of 5 years or longer.” Counting concessions, effective rates run up to 30% below asking.
Two named IE deals show the range. Hanchett Paper Company leased 223,000 SF in Fontana in May 2025 on a six-year, four-month term at $1.08/SF net monthly with six months free. Nor is free rent only for jumbo deals: in August 2025 WECRO leased 60,000 SF in Jurupa Valley on a two-year, four-month term with four months free. Days on market is leverage too — iDC Logistics took an 844,000 SF San Bernardino building after 30 months at $0.95/SF.
Apex quotes no benchmark TI allowance, escalation, or CAM cap, because no approved source publishes reliable IE or Coachella Valley figures. Each is negotiated per deal against your alternatives and the expense structure in your lease type.
The IE industrial market totals 794,791,129 SF, with vacancy at 8.6% and availability at 12.2% — a 13-year high — against a $1.02/SF asking rent, per CoStar, Q1 2026. Asking rent floored in 2025 Q1 and remains 23% below its 2023 peak. The demand base: 1,721,700 nonfarm jobs and 5.3% unemployment in the Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario MSA (BLS, June 2026, preliminary).
Leverage is not uniform, and honest advice says so. Per CoStar, availability tops 17% at 250,000–500,000 SF, approaches 15% from 500,000 SF to 1 million SF, and exceeds 13% at 100,000–250,000 SF. It trends near 10% at 50,000–100,000 SF and near 7% under 50,000 SF — so a small-bay tenant faces a tighter market than the headlines suggest.
Geography is the other lever, and a tenant rep’s first job is testing whether your requirement can flex submarkets. A single-market broker cannot price that trade. Apex works the IE and Coachella Valley as one footprint.
| Submarket | Asking Rent / SF / Mo | Vacancy |
|---|---|---|
| Coachella Valley | $1.42 — highest of 15 | 5.7% |
| Upland/Montclair | $1.37 | — |
| Corona/Eastvale | $1.23 | 6.6% |
| Airport Area | $1.05 | 8.2% |
| Riverside | $1.05 | 7.1% |
| Beaumont/Hemet | $0.91 | 1.1% — lowest shown here |
| San Bernardino | $0.90 | 11.9% |
| Redlands/Loma Linda | $0.89 | — |
| Moreno Valley/Perris | $0.85 — lowest of 15 | 11.6% |
| Chino/Chino Hills | — | 3.7% |
Rent and vacancy move in opposite directions there, which is the point. See Apex’s warehouse space cost breakdown; yard users start with industrial outdoor storage.
Sublease space is an elevated 19% of total IE industrial availability and trades more than 20% below direct space, per CoStar, Q1 2026. Roughly 40 buildings offer 50,000–200,000 SF of sublet space, and another 30 offer over 200,000 SF, typically $1.00–$1.50/SF.
That discount carries structure a tenant must underwrite: the sublease inherits the remaining master-lease term, the master landlord’s consent and recapture rights sit above the deal, and the sublandlord’s default becomes your problem. Pricing those risks is ordinary tenant rep work.
IE retail runs 6.5% vacancy and 6.8% availability against a $2.25/SF asking rent, up 1.4% year over year, per CoStar, Q1 2026. Tightness flips leverage back to landlords in the best trade areas: the Airport Area and South Riverside sit below 5% availability. Coachella Valley retail asks $2.22/SF at 7.8% vacancy and Beaumont/Hemet $1.88/SF at 6.7%, against Chino/Chino Hills at $2.92 and Twentynine Palms at $1.49. Exclusivity, co-tenancy, signage, and use clauses often outweigh rent.
Apex represents office tenants across both markets on the same process. We publish no office vacancy, rent, or absorption figures here: our approved research set has no current Inland Empire office report, and we do not print numbers we cannot source. Ask, and we will pull comparables.
Industrial is the deepest IE tenant rep market, and the data above is industrial. Small-bay flex through big-box distribution, plus truck yards and outdoor storage, run the same six stages.
Even with rents off their peak, a tenant rolling off an older lease is stepping up. Per CoStar, Q1 2026, IE industrial asking rents are still up approximately 15% from five years ago and have more than doubled over the decade. IE retail has moved the same direction: market rents are up over 40% over the decade, averaging $27.00/SF triple-net annually.
A renewal letter arrives with a number and a deadline, and a tenant with no alternative has no leverage. Engaging a rep early enough to run a real survey and table a competing LOI turns a renewal into a negotiation.
Two quotes at the same figure can be very different deals depending on who pays taxes, insurance, and maintenance. Read a proposal before the tour:
Not every requirement justifies a formal engagement, and pretending otherwise is how these pages lose credibility. Keep scope light when:
Even then a short conversation costs nothing. A tenant rep should never be a formality added after you picked the building and named your budget.
Assignments are led by Robert Mendieta Jr., CCIM, Associate Broker, California DRE #01422904, with 20+ years in commercial real estate and $500M+ in firm transaction volume. CCIM is not a course certificate: more than 20,000 professionals have completed the program since 1967, and candidates must submit a Portfolio of Qualifying Experience — the Traditional track requires at least two but fewer than five years of full-time commercial work — plus coursework and an exam, per CCIM Institute. Joseph Lombera, Commercial Agent and CMO (DRE #01971957), supports research.
Sophisticated tenants already work this way. In CoStar’s table of the 40 largest IE industrial leases of the trailing 12 months through Q1 2026, 27 name a tenant rep company — Tireco, iDC Logistics, US ELogistics, and Kumho Tire USA among them. The data behind every recommendation lives in the quarterly Apex market reports.
Customarily the landlord, out of the lease, by agreement. Structure varies by deal and is fixed in writing in your engagement agreement before any letter of intent. California Civil Code Section 2079.16 states a buyer’s agent is not the seller’s agent even if compensated, in full or in part, by the seller.
A tenant rep broker defines your requirement, surveys the whole market including sublease and off-market space, runs the tour, negotiates the letter of intent and lease business terms, and manages delivery through occupancy.
That agent works for the landlord. California Civil Code Section 2079.16 states a seller’s agent under a listing agreement acts as the agent for the seller only. Section 2079.21 also bars a dual agent from disclosing a party’s financial position, motivations, or bargaining position without express permission.
CoStar’s Inland Empire Industrial Market Report for Q1 2026 states leverage remains with occupiers, with one to several months of free rent common on new, larger leases of five years or longer. Vacancy measures 8.6% and availability 12.2%, a 13-year high. But availability exceeds 17% at 250,000 to 500,000 SF and is only about 7% under 50,000 SF.
Effective rent is what you actually pay once concessions are spread across the term. Per CoStar, Q1 2026, Inland Empire effective rates run up to 30% lower than asking. From that report: Hanchett Paper Company leased 223,000 SF in Fontana in May 2025 on a six-year, four-month term at $1.08 per SF net monthly with six months free.
Early enough to run a full market survey and table a competing letter of intent, because a tenant with no alternative has no leverage. Per CoStar, Q1 2026, Inland Empire industrial asking rents are still up approximately 15% from five years ago and have more than doubled over the past decade.
Apex represents industrial, retail, office, and land tenants across the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley. Inland Empire retail runs 6.5% vacancy and a $2.25 per SF asking rent per CoStar, Q1 2026, with Coachella Valley retail at $2.22 per SF. Apex publishes no office statistics here because its approved research set has no current office market report.
Tell us what you need — square footage, clear height, yard, timing, and the submarkets you can live in — or send the renewal letter your landlord mailed. You get a CCIM-led read on your alternatives, not a form response.
Free consult · No obligation · Inland Empire and Coachella Valley coverage · Office: 3750 E. Florida Ave Suite A, Hemet, CA 92544
Apex Real Estate Services · 3750 E. Florida Ave Suite A, Hemet, CA 92544 · Robert Mendieta Jr., CCIM, Associate Broker, CA DRE #01422904 · (951) 977-3251 · Joseph Lombera, Commercial Agent + CMO, CA DRE #01971957. Reviewed by Robert Mendieta Jr., CCIM (DRE #01422904). Last updated: August 20, 2026. Market figures per CoStar Group Inland Empire Industrial and Retail Market Reports, Q1 2026 (data as of 4/1/2026); labor figures per U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario MSA, June 2026 (preliminary, not seasonally adjusted); designation figures per CCIM Institute; statutory citations to California Civil Code §§2079.13, 2079.14, 2079.16, and 2079.21. Nothing here is legal advice — consult your attorney on lease language. Brokerage compensation is not fixed by law and is negotiated by agreement. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed; verify all figures independently before transacting.
