Leases Are Confidential?

It's common knowledge that leases are highly confidential. They are one of a landlords most carefully guarded assets. Leases are secret. Everyone knows that.

Except for publicly traded companies! They have to file everything with the SEC. And the SEC posts everything online at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml If, for example, you want to find out what Corel is paying for space at 1600 Carling Ave in Ottawa, you can find it here. It's $22.03 a square foot plus operating costs of around $16.77, by the way. It's the whole lease, so you can see all the terms and conditions.

Clearly the SEC's EDGAR system is not easy to search - it's not exactly user friendly. It's not easy to find loads of lease information, but it's there. If you are curious what tenants are paying in a building, take a look and see if there are any publicly traded tenants and do a search.

Interestingly, I looked to see if I could find leases on the Canadian system: www.sedar.com/ I could not find them there. I'm not sure if the disclosure rules are different, or if they are just filed differently. But chances are that any large public entity will have to file with the SEC anyway and the information will be on the U.S. system.