The parent company of Sears is increasing efforts to lease or sell space as the company works to cut costs, the Washington Post reported.

Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Sears and Kmart, hopes to reel in interested tenants and buyers with the launch of a new website, www.shcrealty.com, on which it lists 3,837 properties.

A review of the site showed that 62 of the properties listed are in Iowa, including nine in Greater Des Moines.

According to Kim Freely, a Sears spokeswoman, the company had been seeking lease agreements for years, but it had been receiving highly varied responses from potential tenants.

“Somebody might come to us and say, ‘We want to rent a kiosk for 400 square feet,’ and somebody else might want to lease half the store,” she said.

In addition to opportunities for in-store leasing, such as placing H&R Block tax preparation kiosks in hundreds of stores, Sears announced on April 22 that it had signed an agreement with Edwin Watts Golf Shops to open 12 golf outlets, ranging in size from 2,700 to 3,000 square feet, within Sears stores.

“They basically just build out a little section of the store so you don’t even feel like you’re in another part of the store,” said Jesse Tron, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers.

He noted that customers normally don’t realize the difference between a tenant and other Sears departments.

“Over the course of the recession, retailers, shopping centers, everyone has had to get more creative and look for more sources of revenue,” Tron said.

The space available at each store isn’t listed on the site.

“We just think that we could move things around and still do our business as efficiently as we can and there could still be room for other things,” Freely said.

“All Sears is doing is taking their retail play and taking advantage of the real estate play,” said Gary Rappaport, president of McLean, Va.-based Rappaport Cos.

“They’re not the only ones who are doing it. But because they are someone who has a lot of older locations, they can focus on it.”