Sales leasing boosts REINZ Awards winner

The ability to combine a vendor-focused sales discipline with a tenant-centred leasing network has enabled New Zealand’s top commercial and industrial real estate practitioner to take out the premier individual title at this year’s Real Estate Institute of New Zealand Awards for Excellence, held last week at the Auckland Art Gallery.

Paul Hain, of Bayleys Real Estate, won the Best Commercial & Industrial Salesperson accolade ahead of competition from all the major agencies around New Zealand.

Mr Hain credits the achievement with being able to bridge both the vastly different sales and leasing disciplines within real estate – which each have their own unique transactional drivers and dynamics.

“With sales, for example, you work firstly and primarily for the vendor – locating, and then negotiating with, the best possible buyer,” he says.

“On the flipside of a sales transaction, a thorough knowledge of the leasing market is essential in order to be able to accurately advise an investor as to the long term rental levels/occupancy rates.

“Conversely, with leasing you work primarily alongside the tenant – locating the best possible location for their business needs, both functionally and financially. The ability to meet those needs is of course supported by having access to a broad selection of stock, from a wide range of landlords.”

Mr Hain emphasises the importance of being strategically networked across all sectors of corporate real estate – from developers, large-scale institutional owners and high net-worth investors through to single site tenancies, national and multi national tenants, owner/occupier businesses and medium-sized private wealth management funds.

“The longer you have worked in the industry, and the more people you have successfully transacted with, the greater the chance of putting together a deal in which both parties enjoy a win/win scenario,” Mr Hain says.

“A mutually-beneficial transaction ensures repeat business – whereas the old-school ‘dominant and subservient’ type of relationship simply isn’t sustainable over the lifespan of any investment or business. 

“That’s why I have clients and customers on both sides of the transaction equation with whom I’ve been working for decades.”

Winning Deals

Among the sales deals that helped Mr Hain to the number one spot for the 2013/14 financial year are:

The 12,796sq m Watercare Services headquarters at 73 Remuera Rd, Newmarket, Auckland, which sold for $100 million.

The 8303sq m GHD building at 27 Napier St, in the Auckland city fringe location of  Freemans Bay, which sold for $63 million.

The 3737sq m Radio Network Building at 54 Cook St in Auckland Central which sold for $10.3 million to an Auckland-based investor for a yield of 9%. The Radio Network (TRN) has a nine-year lease over the entire building from 2007. Its seven core radio stations operate out of the building are Newstalk ZB, Classic Hits, ZM, Hauraki, Radio Sport, Coast and Flava.

96 St Georges Bay Rd in the Auckland suburb of Parnell – a 3846sq m site containing a 7068sq m concrete building which sold for $10 million at a 6.3% yield. The building is fully leased to warehouse, office showroom and carpark tenants. 

A selection of Mr Hain’s bigger leasing transactions in 2013/14 includes:

• Watercare Services Ltd’s leasing of the 7000sq m of space for 12 years in a newly-completed building at 73 Remuera Rd, Newmarket in Auckland – with New Zealand Lotteries Commission committing to 1938sq m in the same building on a nine-year lease.
• Lion New Zealand’s occupation of 5139sq m of office space on a 10-year lease in the new GHD Centre in Napier St, College Hill, Auckland.
• Oracle NZ’s leasing of 1700sq m on the top floor of 162 Victoria St West in Auckland’s CBD fringe for nine years.
• The leasing of 2500sq m of space on the top floor of 100 Beaumont St on Auckland’s CBD fringe on a nine-year term to New Zealand’s largest insurance broker, Crombie Lockwood.