Tutorials · Watching

Lease alerts

Save a list of reported lease expiries for a borough, ZIP or neighborhood, and get an e-mail as each lease in it comes within 12, 6 or 3 months.

A lease alert watches a whole list instead of one building: every storefront and office lease reported to expire in a borough, a ZIP code or a neighborhood, optionally narrowed to a category or a kind of space. When a lease on that list comes within 12, then 6, then 3 months of its reported expiry, BlockLot e-mails you. Use it to follow the leases ending across a market you work, without rerunning the search every week.

What it watches

The list comes from the Leases expiring tab of Commercial search. Its dates are lease expiries as reported to the NYC Department of Finance: storefronts from the owners' Local Law 157 filings, and office leases in the City's commercial rent programs.

An alert keeps the list's place and filters, but not its dates. Whatever you set in Expiry from and Expiry to, the alert looks at every lease on the list reported to expire in the next 12 months, and tells you about each one as it crosses the 12-, 6- and 3-month marks.

Setting one up

1. Sign in and choose Commercial search from the Prospecting menu.
2. In Where, choose the city, a borough, a ZIP code or a neighborhood, and press Search.
3. Open the Leases expiring tab.
4. Narrow the list if you like with Category, Building class or Storefront / office, and press Search again.
5. Press Alert me on this list, above the table of leases.

The button then reads Watching this list ✓, and the list appears on your Watching page, marked Area · the list. It counts as an area watch: your plan includes a set number of those, separately from building watches.

When the button does not appear

• The place is too small. Alerts work for the city, a borough, a ZIP code or a neighborhood, not for a block, an address or a street stretch. For a single building, watch the building instead; see Watching a building.
• A filter from another tab is set. Filters such as Anchors or Has no belong to other tabs and stay set when you switch tabs. Clear them and the button comes back.
• Your plan's watches are all in use. The button reads Alerts: watches full and links to your Watching page, where you can remove a watch. Saved lists and watched buildings share the same allowance.
• Your plan has no alerts. The page says Alerts are not in your plan; see Plans and billing.
• The list is not open to you. The button appears with the leases themselves, which need a plan with reports left this month.

What you receive

Alerts arrive in the same morning e-mail as building watches, titled Lease expiries in buildings you watch: one e-mail on a morning when something you watch crosses a mark, never two the same day, and never twice for the same lease and mark. Leases are grouped by building, each with its reported expiry date, the kind of lease, which mark it crossed and the filing it comes from, plus a link to the building's page.

A busy list can cross many leases on one morning. The e-mail lists up to 60 and then says how many more there are.

Changing or stopping an alert

To change an alert's filters, set up the new list and press Alert me on this list again, then remove the old one on your Watching page with Remove. To stop every alert e-mail at once, use the unsubscribe link at the foot of any alert; Watching a building explains how to turn alerts back on.