Commercial & industrial

Income that holds, tested before you offer.

We value every asset independently, read the lease tail, vet the tenant covenant and cost the capex a headline yield hides. It is the homework most acquirers skip, done before you make an offer.

Send a commercial brief See the 46-point framework

Acquisition position

Sub-regional homemaker, NSW metro

ASX-listed tenant · 3,225 m² GLA · sourced off-market

94/100

Acquisition score

Net passing yield: 6.45%
WALE: 7.0 yrs
Tenant covenant: ASX-listed
Negotiated below asking: 3.1%
Recommended offer: $18.6M

J. Luckhardt Senior advocate · 46 checks · off-market

What we source

Six commercial asset classes, one discipline.

Large-format retail

Homemaker & bulky-goods

Wesfarmers- and national-anchored, 10-15 year WALEs, $5-20M sub-regional. Dry, low-churn income; we hold the line at 5.75-6.5% net unless the covenant earns tighter.

Industrial & logistics

The yield engine

Modern infill distribution and last-mile sheds near the freight spines. Sub-4% land vacancy keeps reversion positive, but at sub-5% yields the price is in the rent review, so we model it.

Neighbourhood retail

Daily-needs income

Coles/Woolworths-anchored strips and corner convenience in established catchments. We price the anchor lease tail separately from the specialty churn, because they behave nothing alike.

Medical & healthcare

Sticky tenancies

Day hospitals, consulting suites and allied-health centres. Fit-outs of $1-3M chain a tenant to the floorplate, so we test the make-good liability the headline yield ignores.

Mixed-use

Diversified streams

Retail-and-office precincts where one income stream subsidises a weaker one. We strip each tenancy out and re-rate it standalone before trusting a blended yield.

Development sites

Value through entitlements

Pre-zoned and DA-able land where value is created at the approval, not the auction. We cost the planning path and holding before any feasibility. That is the part vendors leave off the flyer.

A worked position

Why we walked from one, and recommended another.

Discipline means saying no. Often. Here is the deal we walked from, and, on the same asset type, the one we backed.

Walked · suburban office, regional VIC

A 7.4% yield is not a bargain.

1,850 m² NLA at a 7.4% headline yield, 80bp above comparable evidence, which usually signals a problem, not a bargain. A building survey found $620k of facade rectification and concrete spalling over three years, landlord-side and unrecoverable.

The single tenant had cut headcount 28% in eighteen months and told the selling agent, off the record, the option would not be exercised. With a 2.3-year lease tail and thin re-letting evidence below the contract rent, the headline yield was a mirage. We advised a buyer not to proceed, and they kept their capital for the next one.

Recommended · $18.6M @ 6.45% net

Sub-regional homemaker, NSW metro

Asking was $19.2M at 6.25% net. Comparable evidence, nine bulky-goods sales over 24 months, sat 6.10-6.85% net. The subject carried $385k of identified roof and HVAC capex over ten years; we discounted that against price (~$310k NPV at 7%) and negotiated 3.1% off asking.

At $18.6M / 6.45% net the buyer pays a 20bp premium over the median comparable, earned by a parent-guaranteed national covenant, fixed 3.5% reviews and tenant-pays OPEX, with a vendor contamination warranty added for an adjacent service-station legacy.

Plain English

The vocabulary, without the mystique.

Three terms drive most commercial pricing. We assume nothing about prior familiarity.

WALE

Weighted average lease expiry

The remaining lease term across all tenants, weighted by how much rent each pays. A 6-year WALE means, on average, six years of contracted income before re-letting risk bites.

Cap rate

Capitalisation rate

Net annual rent divided by the purchase price, as a percentage. A 6% cap rate means the net income is 6% of what you pay. A lower cap rate means a higher price for the same income.

Tenant covenant

How reliable the income is

An ASX-listed national chain on a long lease is a strong covenant. A single private operator month-to-month is weak. The covenant, not the headline yield, is what holds value in a downturn.

Who runs your brief

A senior advocate reads the lease, runs the negotiation and signs the position.

The terms above decide where a commercial deal is won or lost, so the person who weighs them is a principal, not a junior. The advocate who reads your lease tail and vets the covenant is the same advocate who sits across the table and puts a name to the offer.

They answer the phone when a campaign moves, they act only for you (zero vendor commissions), and they stay engaged past settlement.

A principal, not a junior

A senior commercial advocate runs it

One senior advocate owns your brief from the first call to settlement day. The same person who reads the lease also signs the recommendation. No handoff to a coordinator, no learning on your deal.

Reads the lease, runs the room

Across the whole position

They read the lease tail line by line, vet the covenant, cost the capex, and then sit in the negotiation themselves. The analysis and the deal-making are not split between two desks.

Only ever your side

Signed, and conflict-free

Every position carries a name and is signed before it reaches you. We take nothing from vendors, agents or developers; the only fee is yours, agreed in writing, and we stay engaged past settlement.

If I cannot defend the lease, the covenant and the price with my own name on the page, it does not reach you. That is the job.

Bold Property Group · commercial, on the buyer’s side

Buyer-side discipline

When we advise walking away.

Capex shortfall

A building survey finds 10-year landlord capex the headline yield never absorbed, and the vendor will not move on price.

Reversion shock

The lease tail expires inside 36 months and the realistic re-letting rent sits well below the in-place rent. The asset is over-rented.

Covenant downgrade

In DD the tenant proves materially weaker than marketed: no guarantor, recent trading issues, a private operator dressed up as a chain.

Environmental hold

A Phase 1 / 2 assessment flags contamination liability the vendor will not warrant, and the cost to remediate is material.

Planning constraint

A heritage, flood, bushfire or zoning overlay constrains the use you are paying for, so the development upside or change-of-use no longer stands.

Thin evidence

Comparable sales and lease evidence are too thin to defend the pricing: a private-market asset that cannot be triangulated.

Show the working

Every recommendation shows its working.

Comparable-sales and agency-network claims should be substantiated, not asserted. Every recommendation cites its sources.

Comparable sales

Sourced, not asserted

Recent comparable sales drawn from public listings (REA Commercial, Domain Commercial), state titles offices and published broker updates.

Yield benchmarks

Cross-checked

Sector yields cross-checked against published Knight Frank, Savills, Colliers and JLL series: prime CBD office, sub-regional retail, prime industrial.

Agent coverage

The whole network

Briefs reach the major national firms and the regional and boutique principals who actually hold the relevant stock.

Planning & overlay

From the source

Planning controls, heritage, flood and bushfire data sourced from the state planning portals (Planning NSW, Vicplan and the rest).

From brief to settlement

Four stages, one accountable advocate.

Strategy

Goals, brief and criteria: long WALE, reversion, redevelopment or yield spread, defined with you before we go to market.

Source

Your brief circulates across the national agency network, surfacing off-market and pre-market stock where the asset warrants it.

Due diligence

A 46-point written analysis: lease, covenant, capex, environmental, planning and market evidence, all before you commit.

Settle

A senior advocate negotiates the terms and coordinates a 12-step settlement, end to end.

Common questions

Commercial property, answered.

What is a net yield in commercial property?

Net yield is annual rental income minus operating expenses (insurance, rates, management, maintenance), divided by the purchase price. It is the return after the property’s running costs, a truer figure than the headline gross yield a selling agent quotes.

What does WALE mean?

WALE is the Weighted Average Lease Expiry: the remaining lease term across all tenants, weighted by how much rent each pays. A longer WALE means more contracted income before you face re-letting risk, which is why it drives commercial pricing.

How do you access off-market commercial property?

Your brief is circulated to a national set of agency principals: the major firms (CBRE, JLL, Colliers, Knight Frank, Cushman & Wakefield, Stonebridge, Burgess Rawson) and the regional and boutique brokers who hold the relevant stock. Where the asset and brief warrant it, we pursue pre-market and quiet-campaign opportunities before they reach the open market.

Can I buy commercial property through my SMSF?

Yes. Self-managed super funds can acquire commercial property, and business-real-property held in an SMSF is one of the most common structures. We work alongside your accountant and adviser on the structuring; we do not provide financial or tax advice ourselves.

What does your due diligence cover?

Our written DD runs to 46 points: title, lease and tenant covenant, building condition and capex liability, environmental and contamination, planning controls and overlays, market and comparable evidence, and the settlement conditions. You see the working behind every recommendation, not just the conclusion.

Send a commercial brief

Tell us what you’re trying to buy.

Tell us the asset class, budget and outcome. The engine goes to work on it the same day.