There are no two ways about it, it has been a particularly tough year in the commercial property lease market.

And for commercial landlords who are relative newcomers to this market, they won’t have seen anything like it.

I have not seen the market so tough since the property crash that followed the 1987 share market crash.

Hardest hit in this market slump are Read the rest of this entry »

The latest research from the Property Institute of New Zealand shows a great deal of continuing pessimism about the state of the property market.

The research canvassed 2,700 professionals in the property field ranging from valuers to facility managers, property managers and consultants.

Here’s what they thought…
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A radical overhaul of accounting practices for property leases in the United States is likely to lead to dramatic changes in the way commercial property is leased in New Zealand.

These changes have their roots in the major upheavals in the United States corporate world when companies such as Enron and Andersons were found to have ‘cooked the books’.

The Global Financial Crisis compounded concerns about the financial reporting of property leases.

Currently, both in the US and NZ, leased property is Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping costs to a minimum has always been a central business strategy, but with businesses cutting expenditure to the quick, it is very challenging to find new ways to trim costs further.

I have long held the belief, and in fact the evidence too, that smarter property leasing strategies can offer unexpected opportunities to cut costs. And the results can be immediate.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading through some of the latest research on the commercial property market in Auckland and found two key trends.

The first is that the high vacancy levels in and around the Auckland CBD are going to stay that way at least until the end of 2013. Despite the fact that larger corporate organisations could take up 80 percent of the new office space about to come available in new buildings, the current buildings they vacate will add to the existing vacancy levels and keep vacancies high.

The second trend that relates to this is Read the rest of this entry »

The focus I’m hearing in most conversations about the impending Auckland Super City is on the politics, efficiencies and costs.

And that’s fair enough. After all, it is our money as ratepayers that is being spent in the great reshuffle.

But I am also interested in some of the opportunities the new city structure brings, and what needs to happen to make them a reality.

Auckland has Read the rest of this entry »

It is very easy to take things for granted and make assumptions in business.

Even successful and smart business leaders can make the wrong assumptions about basic costs. I think sometimes the mind can play tricks on us too, and we can browse a set of accounts or a written article and miss some details that we either think are irrelevant or that we don’t want to know about.

I sometimes speculate that there is a good deal of emotion attached to figures related to mortgages and rent. We often Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been talking for some time now about how much of a tenant’s market it is for leasing property. It’s been keeping us busy working with clients looking to negotiate good deals and take advantage of the over supply of commercial space. And if you are in the right position, it is a very good time to move.

But a word of caution…

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Over the past few years I’ve written a number of times about the Australian influence on the New Zealand property market. First it was, “The Aussies are coming”. Then it was, “The Aussies are here”. And most recently, “The Aussies are here and they are us”.

And today, with the oversupply of commercial rental office space and residential high rise space, they are struggling for good returns the same as everyone else.

Let me give you a snapshot…   Read the rest of this entry »

I think I would be really hard pushed to find anyone on the planet who wouldn’t like to attend fewer work meetings.

Complaints about ‘meeting overload’ and the trials of a day of back-to-back meetings must echo around offices across the globe.

But there could be a answer in sight… Read the rest of this entry »

The great majority of us still have some pretty old fashioned ways of thinking about property.

Just the very words landlord and tenant come from a bygone era when we stop to think about it. It was a time of feudal land ownership when there really were lords with peasant tenants who were completely subservient to them.

Language is a powerful thing, and using these words today always implies a power structure. In the subconscious mind Read the rest of this entry »

I was browsing through some blogs and online articles about commercial property leasing in the United States and it dawned on me (not for the first time!) how limited our systems in New Zealand are for tenant representation.

In the USA, Australia and other countries it is very much the norm that both landlords and tenants alike have their interests independently represented. Read the rest of this entry »