A Portfolio That Never Stops Moving

Jim Baron has a lot to keep track of. As VP of Real Estate, Construction, and Facilities at Rarebreed Veterinary Partners, he oversees more than 120 clinic locations spanning multiple states. His team is lean. The portfolio is not.

On any given day, something is happening at one of those locations. A building system or equipment fails and the field team needs to know who is responsible. A new group of clinics is being acquired and the leases need to be understood and absorbed, fast. Jim is in Occupier every single day.

"A lot of it is operations related," Jim explained. "We have 120 plus locations, so something is always happening at one. We get a call from the field, or we are talking about what clinics we are going to expand or relocate. Constant questions on what is the current situation with the lease. Who is the landlord? How much time do we have left? How much do we owe?"

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The Cost of Missing a Single Date

For a company operating at Rarebreed's scale, a missed renewal is not a paperwork problem. It is a business crisis.

Renewal windows at the clinic level can be as short as 30 days or as long as 18 months depending on the lease. Miss the window and the options collapse. The landlord moves on. The practice may have to close while the team scrambles to find and build out a replacement location.

“If we miss a renewal, whether it was a lease we wanted to terminate or one we wanted to renew and the landlord had other plans, that would be pretty significant. Without the visibility from Occupier, that could have a significant impact on our operations. ” — Jim Baron, VP of Real Estate, Construction and Facilities

With Occupier, critical date notifications keep every expiration, renewal option, and termination right visible well in advance. Renewal windows are flagged up to 18 months out, giving Jim's team the time they need to make the right call.

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Decisions: When Lease Data Becomes Business Strategy

Rarebreed is an acquisitive company. Clinics are bought, expanded, combined, and sometimes relocated. For Jim, every one of those decisions runs through lease data.

“Using Occupier to understand what is coming up for expiration or renewal triggers strategic discussions. There are not a whole lot of times where you have leverage in the life of a lease, so that makes that part important.”

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New Leases, No Disruption

When Rarebreed acquires a practice or a group of practices, the existing leases come with it. Those leases need to be understood, abstracted, and incorporated into the portfolio, usually on a compressed timeline.

For Jim's team, that process is frictionless. Leases are emailed to the Occupier abstraction team, loaded into the system, and available for review. The data is in the right place before the ink is dry on the acquisition.

"For us, not much work at all," Jim said of the onboarding process. "We just email them over and you guys load everything. That process is pretty smooth." In a business where acquisitions are frequent and timing is everything, that smoothness is not a minor convenience. It is the difference between a clean handoff and a chaotic one.

For a company managing 120+ locations with a lean team, having the right data at the right time is not a nice-to-have. It is how Rarebreed stays ahead of deadlines, acts on opportunities, and brings structure to decisions that reach well beyond real estate. Occupier gives Jim's team the visibility to move with confidence, no matter what the portfolio brings next.

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