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One south-west Sydney commercial agency has used asset management as a launching pad for new heights of success.
LJ Hooker Commercial Macarthur has recently added an extra 20,000 square metres of building area to their asset management portfolio, bringing the total value of their portfolio to around $1.5 billion.
It’s an area of commercial property that can sometimes be overlooked by agencies, but which LJ Hooker Commercial Macarthur co-directors Aaron Ward and Darren Zammit believe is a crucial linchpin of their business.
“We have several stories of helping investors acquire one property, and now we manage 10 for them,” Ward shared.
“We’ve acquired a lot of managements from referrals via existing clients and other professionals in the Macarthur region.”
In fact, one of the most recent additions to the company’s asset management portfolio came from an investor who has been working with LJ Hooker Commercial Macarthur for over two decades.
“We actually sold the investor his first property in the area in 2001,” Ward said.
He stated that the business’s long-term clients “know our approach to asset management and our on-the-ground presence and experience”.
“These factors are why we’ve had a lot of growth in asset management over the last two years,” said Ward.
Today, LJ Hooker Commercial Macarthur proudly touts itself as the leading commercial provider in the Macarthur area.
To aid efficiency, the agency has split its asset management services into two separate departments: industrial and retail.
Industrial assets – including office properties – currently comprise 65 per cent of total asset management, according to Ward.
The remaining 35 per cent are retail assets, ranging from local neighbourhood shopping centres to strip shops.
According to Zammit, this bifurcated structure is “aimed at developing efficiencies and mitigating risk” for both LJ Hooker Commercial Macarthur and its clients.
“There’s an advantage in having specialist knowledge of compliance and industry connections in the two departments,” said Zammit. “Having a sector focus allows us to deliver solutions and advice faster to our clients and respond to tenant and investor requests with greater confidence.”
He noted that retail in particular is “very different in its legislation and compliance”, and shared that members of the retail asset management team regularly engage in professional development courses to keep themselves up to date.
“We’ve also brought in solicitors to brief us on new legislation and recent interpretations of the Retail Leases Act through the court,” said Zammit.
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