PROPERTY
Making Experience Count
WORDS: PHOTOGRAPHY
What drives a commercial real estate agent strive to be the very best? ORM went to meet a Gold Coast local who pulled in over $100 million in sales in the last financial year to find out…
Many real estate agents are transparently focused on making quick sales – not this one. Brad Duncalfe is an experienced commercial real estate with Ray White Commercial, based in Burleigh Heads, who’s well known among his clients for his dedication. Those clients include Villa World, Morris Property Group, Abacus Property Group, Changfa and Neumann’s Group.
Brad is a commercial property specialist with extensive experience and proven track record. Actually, his track record isn’t just proven, it’s impressive. He recently won sixth in Australasia reaching over 100m in sales (2017-2018 financial year) for Ray white Commercial. That included a $42.8m shopping centre and office complex in Hope Island, $15m office building in Varsity Lakes, and $26m development site in Hope Island.
His unwavering focus is on client satisfaction. “I’ve been in this business for many years but I’m very analytical in my approach,” he tells ORM. “I have an analyst on my team and we really get stuck into the numbers in commercial property. The numbers and the identifying opportunity are what sell. We get better prices than our competitors because we research the market with greater accuracy. Many years ago I read a book that posed the question, ‘are you a deal maker or an order taker?’ I like to think of myself as the former. I take the time to understand what sellers want; it’s important to understand their objectives. It’s the same with buyers. Every deal is different, every property is different, buyer’s needs, seller’s desired terms – you have to understand all of those pieces of the jigsaw to get it right. So, we don’t take on as many listings as other agents but we have a higher success rate and achieve higher prices than our competition.”
Brad has been in commercial property business for 40 years. Born on the Gold Coast, he was leasing office space and managing commercial property at 17. He qualified as a valuer in Brisbane but was drawn to the challenging cold face of sales as soon as he’d completed his qualification.
For over 20 years he worked for developers as a development manager and then director. It was running the Australia Fair Shopping Centre in Southport that drew him back to the Gold Coast and from then he moved away from development.
His knowledge of the Gold Coast market, and types of investors who are drawn here, is as impressive as his sales achievements. “Working in this business you have to understand the objective of passive investors, active investors and owner occupiers,” he says. “The Gold Coast market is unique, I call it the ‘small business capital of Australia’. People don’t come here looking for big corporate jobs; they tend to be small business entrepreneurs who want to earn a good income to provide for their family and enjoy the lifestyle we love here.
“I pride myself on customer satisfaction. We regularly get 10/10 in NPS surveys (net provider score) on completion from both sellers and buyers.”
In his constant quest to gather market intelligence, Brad immerses himself in all of the factors influencing sales. From changes in superannuation to speaking to banks and valuers, constant analysis of the market keeps him ahead of competitors.
“The Gold Coast market is very active,” he says. “I’d say around 30-40 per cent of my business is repeat business. That doesn’t happen by accident. I still do some leasing for clients I know well. They come to me because they trust me and I give them that satisfaction guarantee. That keeps me in tune with what’s happening in the leasing market and, ultimately, that’s what determines the asset value. I’ve represented clients on assignments from Armidale to the south, west to Warwick and Townsville to the north. My team are working on around 10 listings at the moment. We might about 30 prospects looking at each of those assets so that’s 300 people we are constantly communicating with. I enjoy the diversity of my work.”
If you’d like to speak to Brad for a confidential discussion you can contact him on:
Tel: 0419 641 058/07 5535 0500
* $42.8m shopping centre and office complex in Hope Island.
* $15m SteelX office building in Varsity Lakes.
* $26m Waterfront development site in Hope Island.
