Over the past 11 years, I’ve written more than 100 columns in various local media on the regional commercial real estate market, taking an occasional potshot or two at things political along the way. My first series of twice-monthly columns ran in this paper for a little more than three years, in the 1999 to 2002 timeframe. Later, I resumed producing columns on related topics from 2006 until about two years ago.

Most of my columns dealt with the rampant abuses that routinely take place throughout the region’s commercial real estate market with a focus on the local office sector. There was plenty to write about, considering the greedy and incompetent practices on the part of so many office building owners and property managers. The actions of landlord brokers who routinely disregarded the welfare of tenants also merited all the attention I could muster.

Of all the issues I’ve written about over the years, there appears to be one that hasn’t caught my attention until now — the need to protect the privacy of a client’s leasing transaction.

Strange as it may sound, it’s customary in this business for some, if not most, agents to share information about their client’s leasing transactions with each other, under the guise of client “comps.” Most agents think nothing of telling all who will listen the intimate details of the leasing transactions they handle for their clients. That information is sensitive in nature and it is valuable to other entities, including CoStar, a well-known and highly regarded real estate research firm that is to the commercial market what the Multiple Listing Service is to the residential real estate business. More about that in a minute.

Commercial agents and other inquiring minds gave up calling me long ago to try to obtain information on the specifics of transactions that I handle for my clients because I refuse to disclose such information that is sensitive and confidential in nature. Frankly, the financial terms of my clients’ leases and other such details are proprietary information that is nobody else’s business. That said, a few of my clients over the years have opted for a press release about their move—but that was their prerogative, not mine.

Think about the competitive disadvantage a company suffers if how much and what they pay for their office space becomes public knowledge and falls into the hands of their competitors. For example, the amount of space being leased can indicate the number of employees a company has. The “total consideration” of the lease can quickly be deduced into the average monthly rent, which, along with the head count, gives a good indication of that company’s fixed expenses and its probable gross revenues. Even information on how much the company is receiving in tenant improvements can reveal the extent to which the tenant is bankable. Such allowances are often indicators of how solid the tenant’s business model is—or isn’t — perceived to be by the landlord who is privy to the tenant’s true financials.

Our resolve to protect the privacy of our clients’ transaction, however, hasn’t come without a price. Because we don’t provide transaction details to CoStar and other reporting entities, they have incomplete information on the number of transactions our firm handles in a year.

For example, a couple of representatives from a large “full-service” brokerage firm recently sent an e-mail solicitation to one of our tenant clients as an “education” piece on a basic lease renewal strategy. Among the materials they sent was a chart, using CoStar data, showing that our firm had only represented 36 clients in 2009 while they and others represented substantially more. Truth be told, we represent, on average, about 150 active clients at any given point in time and we closed more than 200 transactions last year. According to CoStar’s numbers on the chart, that would rank us as having represented more than all of our competitors combined. The glitch in the information stems from the fact that we don’t report the details of those transactions to outside reporting agencies. Therefore, they have no way to track our real business volume.

While we find ourselves having to continually correct misinformation about our position in the marketplace, we think it’s a worthwhile price to pay in order to protect the confidentiality of our clients’ transactions. More important, though, is the fact that office tenants need to know how they can protect their own information.

First of all, tenants who work with other leasing agents should insist that all information about the terms and conditions of their lease be treated as confidential information, not to be shared with other parties. Second, tenants should document the understanding by having their agents sign a written non-disclosure agreement (NDA)—one that has teeth.

You’d think keeping one’s mouth shut on behalf of their clients’ business dealings would be an intuitive virtue on the part of leasing agents entrusted with the responsibility to find locations for their clients’ business operations. However, you’d be surprised to find out just how untrue that assumption is among most office leasing agents.

In businesses as competitive as those of most office space tenants, silence should be golden on the part of those who are supposed to represent their best interests.