Increase in sales and leasing revenue reflects "continuing confidence in property as an investment asset"
The commercial and industrial business of real estate agency Bayleys is on track to have what it calls one of its “best years ever.”
Ryan Johnson, national director commercial and industrial at Bayleys, said that sales and leasing revenue for the first half of the current financial year is nearly 75% of the previous full financial year to March 31, 2021, and has already concluded “close to 1,700 commercial and industrial transactions worth $2.6 billion from April to the end of September, more than double the value of deals done in the same six months of last year.”
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“Real estate agents are by nature an optimistic bunch, but even we’re finding these sorts of numbers quite staggering, particularly when you consider that Auckland – which comprises a large component of the market – was in lockdown from mid-August for just over six weeks of the first six months of this financial year, mostly in full Level 4 lockdown when physical property inspections weren’t possible,” said Johnson. “This big growth in transactions is a combination of our increased market share and greater market activity which is a reflection of continuing confidence in property as an investment asset and in the returns that it is providing.”
Johnson added that clients are “forging ahead with their real estate strategies – whether they be recycling of property, deleveraging or acquisition – and are not letting Delta derail them.”
“Accelerated technological advances have allowed online auctions to play out seamlessly and mean the necessary dottings and crossings of the finer details of sales and leasing agreements can be undertaken virtually,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alan Haydock, Bayleys’ leading commercial agent year-to-date, said that the land sales market has been particularly active.
“Purchasers of these types of properties are looking well beyond COVID because of the time it takes to get any development plans drawn up, consented and built,” said Haydock.
Bayleys had already been seeing rising activity around commercial and industrial property earlier in the year, saying in March that Auckland’s industrial sector in particular had experienced “feverish activity.”
