Waikato Business News June/July 2021

8 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS June/July 2021
CONVERSATIONS WITH MIKE NEALE
OF NAI HARCOURTS HAMILTON
Thinking of selling your
commercial property ?
It is on a daily basis that we are now
being approached by owners pondering
the “should we be selling” question
and therefore wanting to know about
maximising value.
Two important factors:
Is there anything an owner can do that
will assist with maximising its value?
a) presentation
b) lease terms
c) documentation
Presentation is always an important factor,
particularly for investors. Often that
first impression can be critical in maintaining
or increasing a potential purchaser’s
interest. This can be from replacing
stained ceiling tiles to toilet hardware, to
outside weed removal or replacing rusted/
leaking gutters. A well-presented property
suggests to a purchaser that there are
unlikely to be future issues, the tenant is
happy and it should be relatively easy to
re-lease in the future. A poorly maintained
property suggests just the opposite, that
the obvious deferred maintenance may
just be the tip of the iceberg.
If you have a lease in place there may
be the need to carry out an upcoming rent
review or get certainty around an impending
lease renewal. The majority of purchasers
will base their value consideration
on what the property is actually returning,
not on what it might return – and certainty
on a lease renewal is incredibly important
for passive investors, who currently make
up the majority of purchasers. Conversely
if a tenant confirms that they will not be
taking up a right of renewal, this will then
clearly attract either owner-occupiers, or
developers.
Get your documentation in place. The
first question a bank is going to ask a
potential purchaser, is to confirm its earthquake
strength status. A report can often
take some time to be completed, as qualified
structural engineers are currently in
hot demand.
As part of any marketing campaign,
the vendor should supply a LIM. This
allows for any issues that may be highlighted,
to be dealt with early and potentially
rectified – anything from a Code
Compliance Certificate not being issued,
to a BWoF showing as lapsed.
Just as uncertainty can be an
owner’s adversary, certainty is
equally a purchaser’s friend.
What is the best method of selling to
maximise its value?
Every property will be different, but one
thing is for sure – a property needs to be
openly marketed and the element of competition
will be crucial in maximising its
Mike Neale - Managing Director,
NAI Harcourts Hamilton.
value. I often hear “we have a valuation,
so that must be what it’s worth?” - not
necessarily true, a registered valuation is
an opinion on value based on recent comparable
sales, often undertaken for a bank
or financing purposes. As we often say, it
actually doesn’t matter what an agent or
valuer’s opinion of value is, the market is
the only true determiner of a property’s
value – having been marketed widely and
with competition. Our job as marketing
agents is to provide good credible advice
around how we may work together to
maximise that value.
There are essentially four recognised
methods of marketing and selling - all
have different principles that will potentially
vary depending on the property and
circumstances. This could include a combination
of the location, lease terms, price
bracket, seismic rating and tenure of the
property.
• Fixed Price
• Auction
• Tender
• Deadline Sale
It is increasingly important to provide a
deadline in which potential purchasers
must act, so as to drive urgency from
them.
The biggest risk for a vendor? Selling
without seeing what the open market will
pay. I personally have sold several properties
in recent years and without doubt,
the marketing and competition was my
friend.
Remember – you only have one
opportunity to put your property
on the market for the first time.
Covid has led many people to reassess
their lives - and also their property holdings.
Genuine vendors are now considering
making selling decisions, due to a
wide variety of reasons. I have always
held the belief that every vendor deserves
to have the opportunity to maximise the
price that the market is willing to pay.
Vacancy rates remains low, demand for
commercial property remains high, bank
lending and deposit rates are at historic
lows, so what better time to consider the
question around selling?
How to halt
the hackers
The bad news is there’s a good chance
you’ve already been hacked, even if you
don’t know it.
And if you haven’t, it may
only be a matter of time
until you are.
Just ask the Waikato DHB,
victim of a ransomware attack
that had massive ramifications
for the organisation’s operations.
If they can’t keep the hackers
out, who can?
That breach appears to have
been as simple as someone
downloading something from an
email that they shouldn’t - something
that will be making many
wince in sympathy.
The good news is most people
reading this will be minnows
compared to the DHB whale,
and therefore of less interest to
the really big sharks cruising out
there.
And there are simple things
you can do to minimise the risk
- up to and including buying
cyber liability insurance.
Take it from Bradley Whittal,
a Waikato cyber security expert
who manages to sound simultaneously
reassuring and alarming
in a matter of fact way while
describing what sounds a lot like
the wild west.
“The thing is, no matter who
you are, or what business you
have, it's just a matter of time
before you're hacked. If somebody
really wants to hack you,
nothing's going to stop them.”
Clearly, that includes the
DHB and while Whittal is
wary of forming a judgment
(“I'll wait for them to come out
with the finding”), he thinks
their use of physical servers is
problematic.
The DHB hack has, not surprisingly,
been good for business.
Inquiries to DI Solutions,
Bradley Whittal focuses on educating staff about cyber safety.
which he founded three years
ago, jumped sixfold in the wake
of the attack.
Whittal, who is a certified
ethical hacker, provides a service
ranging from cyber security
education to ferreting out details
that may be up for sale on the
dark web. He also works with
the insurance industry to check
client vulnerability.
DI Solutions offers dark
web monitoring, looking
for any credentials that may
be exposed, and pairs that
with phishing training and
awareness.
That could, for instance, see
them sending scam emails to
employees posing as their boss
or trying to deposit money into
the owner’s account. They then
educate staff where they might
have gone wrong. They also
offer ongoing support, including
making sure a firm’s antivirus is
working correctly.
“With security, it's not like
building a wall - you know,
you build the wall, and you
forget about it. Because the
online world is always changing,
so there's maintenance,”
Whittal says.
Every morning, the first thing
he does is run a check of each of
their clients, who range from
law firms to tradies and cafes.
“If you’ve got a computer, you
are vulnerable.”
Whittal, who started on this
path after his grandfather was
scammed, says the cyber security
industry is picked to grow
by 73 percent this year in New
Zealand.
He thinks Covid-19 has
amplified the growth, with “a
lot more people” trying to hack
information at what he describes
as the beginner level. “We call
them script kiddies, because
they're using somebody else's
program to try and hack somebody.”
DI Solutions’ distinctive
approach is to focus on educating
their clients. “Your end user,
at the end of the day, is the weakest
point.”
He says the US stats show 70
percent of all SME businesses
have already been hacked and
don't know about it. That could
mean their passwords are out
there or a list of emails is up for
sale on the dark web.
And so it goes. Someone
signs up for an online service,
with their email address and
a password; the service gets
hacked and the person’s password
and email address are
compromised.
“That list then is sold on the
dark web, which your everyday
user doesn't see. And then
that's when people go, ‘I'll buy
1000-odd passwords’. And they
go through the list and try and
get into somebody's account,
and then steal information from
them and sell it on the dark web.
And, you know, the process goes
on and on.”
Whittal says an email
address and a password can sell
for anywhere between US$1 and
US$8, depending on the size of
the business.
He is able to detect if an
encrypted password has been
cracked, and points out it’s an
easier fix if the person uses a different
password for each service.
US stats also show 39 percent
of people use the same or
similar password, meaning a
successful hacker can then log
into any of their online services.
Ransom demands are one risk,
but there is also potential loss
if clients’ details are being
shared with competitors. Even
in the IT game, Whittal says,
he gets contacted by people
offering to sell lists of people’s
information.
“If people do get emailed
lists, or called about a list, they
shouldn't be buying, because
they probably have been
acquired illegally.”
NAI Harcourts Hamilton
Monarch Commercial Ltd MREINZ Licensed
Agent REAA 2008
Cnr Victoria & London Streets, HAMILTON
07 850 5252 | hamilton@naiharcourts.co.nz
www.naiharcourts.co.nz
205180AF
Stay safe
Regulatory changes in December
include the requirement for
anyone who has been hacked
to notify Cert NZ or face a
potential $10,000 fine and also
introduced requirements, called
PSR, for businesses to follow
around what to do with client
data and how to encrypt it.
Waikato Business News asked
Bradley Whittal for three top
tips for business owners to keep
themselves safe from cyber
attacks. He highly recommends
getting a password manager -
one password which unlocks
the others. Firstly, he says, that
means you only have to remember
one password. “Secondly,
you then have a directory of
your passwords. So if something
is compromised, you can
then search for that compromised
password.
“Second would be setting
up second factor authentication,
via either Google Authenticator
or via text notification.”
That means when logging into
to your email account, you get
a text with six digits as part of
logging in. “If your password
for your email, for example,
was breached, they would then
be stuck there, they don't have
access to that six digit code. Or
you use Google Authenticator,
where the passwords reset
every 30 seconds.”
The third tip is simplicity
itself. Whittal says if someone
sends a request for payment,
make sure it is coming
from the right email address.
“Just phone them. It takes
two minutes; phone to make
sure that It is them.”