Lane 03 · Commercial

In commercial, the lease is the asset.

Residential buyers buy buildings. Commercial investors buy income streams, so I grade the income before the building, price the lease instead of the listing, and never take the selling agent's word for value. Client-side commercial buyers agents are rare. That's the point.

See The Deal Grade™Book a strategy call

Netyield assessed after outgoings, not the headline gross

A1–C3every property graded before it's priced

+$900Ka value-add project I led: Dry Creek SA, 22 months, plans not bricks. Receipt 03

Commercial property buyers agent, client-side only.

A commercial buyers agent should be paid by the buyer and graded on the numbers, so that's the whole model: no developer kickbacks, no sell-side commissions, every deal scored on income quality before the building. The settled purchases are on the results page, and the fees are published: see exactly what I charge.

The system

The Deal Grade™

Two grades, one verdict. The building is graded A to C on the physical asset: age, construction, clear height, power, location. The income is graded 1 to 3 on the lease, because that's what you're actually buying. The full walkthrough of the role behind the grade is in what a commercial buyers agent does.

Income 1strong lease

Income 2workable

Income 3weak / vacant

Bldg A

Bldg B

Bldg C

Buy zone Value-add only, repriced Walk

The buy zone is A1, A2 and B1.

B2, A3 and C1 are value-add plays only, and only at a price that pays for the risk. Everything else, we walk.

Why it matters

The selling agent grades every property A1. I grade maybe one in ten that way, and I show the workings, criterion by criterion, before you offer a dollar.

If the grade doesn't say buy, the price doesn't matter.

The income grade

Six things the listing won't tell you about the lease.

WALE, weighted by incomeFour-plus years is a 1. And I weight it by income, not just years: a five-year average where 80% of the rent expires next year is a 3, whatever the brochure says.

Tenant covenantNational, ASX or government tenant, or a genuine multi-tenant spread, grades 1. A single fragile tenant grades 3, no matter how nice the coffee shop looks.

EscalationsFixed 3%+ or CPI-plus annual increases grade 1. Market-review-only escalations are a promise, not a number.

Net vs grossA true net lease, where the tenant pays the outgoings, grades 1. A gross lease means you wear every cost increase for the term.

Rent vs marketAt or under market grades 1: there's reversion upside built in. Over-rented grades 3; that's an income cliff dressed as a yield.

Incentives and vacancy riskHeavy incentives washing through the rent mask what the space really earns. I strip them out before the yield gets quoted.

The method

Precinct. Grade. Price.

Precinct: sector and timing first.

Property clock position by asset class, precinct supply, tenant demand depth, infrastructure. Office, retail and industrial move on different cycles; buying the right asset in the wrong phase still loses.

Grade: the Deal Grade matrix.

Building A–C against the published grading criteria. Income 1–3 against the six lease tests. Only buy-zone deals proceed to pricing; most don't.

Price: the lease, not the listing.

Term and reversion valuation for anything under- or over-rented. Cap-rate comps from settled sales, not agent guides. A 10-year cash flow with NPV, IRR and vacancy scenarios. The offer is anchored to these numbers, never to the guide.

The three value levers

Upside the listing agent won't model for you.

Because they work for the other side. Every appraisal I run quantifies all three.

Covenant upgrade

Same rent, stronger tenant, compressed cap rate. The signature on the lease can be worth more than the building works.

Example: $100K rent re-rated from a 6% to a 4% cap adds $833K of value.

Reversion capture

Buy under-rented, reset to market at expiry. Term and reversion pricing means you pay for today's lease and keep tomorrow's upside.

Example: $100/m² passing vs $150/m² market on 510m² is a $425K capital gain at reset.

Lettable area

Mezzanines and NLA expansion, valued per square metre. The cheapest floor space you'll ever buy is the air inside your own building.

Example: a 50m² mezzanine at $3,250/m² adds $162K of value.

What you get

Deliverables that stand up against the sell side.

Deal Grade scorecardBuilding and income grades with the workings shown.

Buyer-side appraisalTerm and reversion plus cap-rate comps, not the selling agent's opinion of value.

10-year cash flowNPV, IRR, vacancy sensitivity, incentive drag, exit value.

Lease review memoWALE by income and by area, escalations, recoverability, incentive audit.

Value lever assessmentCovenant, reversion and NLA upside: quantified, not implied.

Offer pack and executionNegotiation anchored to the numbers, settlement coordinated. SMSF-commercial structures flagged to your adviser.

The fee

Engagement fee plus a success fee at exchange.

$20,000 minimum

$5,000 engagement fee, then a success fee of $15,000 or 2% of the purchase price, whichever is greater, at unconditional exchange. Both figures include GST. The floor exists because a full acquisition process costs the same whether the asset is $600,000 or $6 million; the percentage only overtakes it once the purchase price passes $750,000. Commercial searches vary wildly in length; the structure reflects it.

The Deal Grade and full pricing stack are free on your strategy call. Bring a listing and leave with the grade, the appraisal logic and the ten-year numbers, before you commit to anything.

Precinct and property-clock timing analysis
The Deal Grade on every candidate
Term and reversion pricing, cap-rate comps, DCF
Off-market access through agent relationships
SMSF commercial, including related-party premises

The proof

Commercial · Receipt 03pre-DA

The shed on 8,928 square metres. My money in the deal, my method on the numbers.

Dry Creek, SA · bought $3,850,000, February 2022 · sold $4,750,000, December 2023 · not a client purchase

This is my own project, bought and held with two partners through a unit trust, not a client engagement. An 8,928m² Strategic Employment-zoned site at 11% coverage, bought for $3,850,000 in February 2022. I ran it through the same income-before-building discipline I apply to every commercial brief, then masterplanned it as 13 office warehouses under the name TenSixteen Business Park, and sold it for $4,750,000 in December 2023, before a development application was even lodged.

Read receipt 03 on the results page →

The settled commercial entry on my ledger is Dry Creek, SA, my own project rather than a client's, published in full on the results page. I use the same Deal Grade™ discipline, income assessed before the building, on every client commercial brief. Client settlement data will be added here as those purchases complete, rather than dressed up in the meantime. As at September 2026.

Dry Creek was bought and sold as principal, not on a client's behalf. Individual outcomes vary. Full disclaimer below.

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The other lanes.

Lane 01Residential investmentPost-2027 modelling, pocket-level precision. Lane 02SMSF propertyFund first. Compliance pre-flight before the search. Lane 04Development sitesOff-market sourcing, Feaso Filter™ discipline.

FAQ

Questions buyers ask before engaging

What is The Deal Grade™?

Every commercial property I assess is graded A1 to C3, income before building: tenant covenant, lease length and WALE, escalation structure, net versus gross terms, then the asset and its location depth. The grade decides whether a deal earns your capital; the brochure doesn't.

How does the $20,000 minimum fee work?

The $5,000 retainer funds the search and analysis. The success fee is $15,000 or 2% of the purchase price, whichever is greater, payable only when I secure the asset, so the minimum total is $20,000. Both components include GST, so a firm quoting you 2% and adding GST on top is quoting 2.2%. The percentage only overtakes the $15,000 floor once the purchase price passes $750,000; below that, a straight percentage would underprice the acquisition work a smaller asset still requires.

Do you review the lease before purchase?

The lease is most of the analysis: WALE, annual escalations, outgoings allocation, tenant strength and renewal risk are scored before we price the asset. Formal legal review sits with your solicitor, and I work through the findings with them before you're committed.

Would you ever buy a vacant commercial property?

Rarely, and only when it's priced as vacant with a credible leasing thesis, not as a discount that turns out to be the whole risk. Income quality is the reason to be in commercial; buying without income is a different strategy and deserves to be priced like one.

Do you publish a target yield?

No, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who does. A yield only means something against a specific building, a specific lease and a specific buyer's position, so a number printed on a website tells you nothing about your own deal. What I publish instead is the method: Deal Grade™ assesses the income before it assesses the building, every outgoing is netted off before a number is quoted to you, and you see the full workings on a specific property before you commit to anything.

Can I buy commercial property through my SMSF?

Yes. Business real property is the one commercial asset your fund can lease back to your own business at market rent, and it runs through the same Deal Grade™ discipline as any other commercial brief.

Is the Dry Creek project a client purchase?

No. It's my own, bought and held with two partners through a unit trust. It's the settled commercial entry on my results page and I'd rather say that plainly than let it stand in for client work it isn't. The Deal Grade™ process runs the same way whether the money in the deal is mine or yours, which is the part worth checking me on.

Bring the listing. Leave with the grade.

A strategy call is 30 minutes. The Deal Grade, the appraisal logic and the ten-year numbers are free either way. If it's a walk, I'll tell you before the sell side charges you for finding out.

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