A long term lease is beneficial for the renter in many circumstances. They don't want to have the conditions of the lease renegotiated every year because moving a company is a lot more disruptive than moving to a new apartment. They also often don't even want to own the property. I worked a place that paid a builder to build them an office complex, sold it to a management company, then rented it back from them. Why? Because the company did not want to tie up all it's assets in a piece of real estate, and wanted to focus on their actual business.
> A long term lease is beneficial for the renter in many circumstances.
That really depends…
Take a well know British retailer (was either Debenhams or House of Fraser can't quite remember)
Until the 80/90s it owned most of it's stores but a PE company bought the retailer and split the property into a separate company which them leased the stores to the retailer on an ever increasing rent
The property company was then sold off for a good price as it had assets and a 'good' income stream
The retailer now unable to cope with the rent levels become unprofitable and eventually went bust
Obviously it makes sense for some companies and not for others, and so you see some buying real estate and others leasing. The point isn't that no company should ever own property, it's that it makes sense for many to rent.
