Market Comment October 2018

Expedio has just concluded one of the busiest months in our history in terms of transactions – both purchase and sale, plus of course leases.  Our thanks go to those agents who have completed the many transactions for us. Once again, almost all transactions were off market.

We prefer to work with agents who are able to successfully match the correct property with the appropriate owner/occupier, tenant or investor. Auckland may be a city of 1.415 million people. But the pool of potential clients for South Auckland industrial property is dramatically smaller than that. To use an old analogy, a rifle is more accurate than a shotgun. Whilst marketing is essential, targeted marketing works best.

With every transaction we learn a new lesson, or re-inforce an old learning that we need reminding of. And lately  we have been very much reminded of how important it is to think laterally. To think of not what we see , but what we could be seeing if we apply imagination. We have had several properties which by taking a  different view of them, and the underlying numbers, the perspective has changed markedly. And for that we thank those agents who have brought an alternative perspective to the table.

At the same time, the trend that is very apparent is that the agents who are the most successful are also the best communicators. A negative  example of this was when we were discussing space requirements with a potential client on site (along with an agent) when the client took a call. The call was another agent calling back to discuss the building we were in. The client said that it took the other agent four days to return their call. We believe speed , communication  and consistency are indeed fundamental qualities. There is a saying that “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing today” ,and those agents who take that on board are certainly the ones doing the deals.