Harcourts Regent Realty has purchased the Hawkes Bay’s largest independent commercial real estate business, City Commercial.

It will become part of the NAI Harcourts brand, and will operate out of Regent Realty’s Hastings and Napier city offices.

Regent Realty owner Kaine Wilson made the purchase after deciding to expand the commercial arm of his business.

“Regent Realty is strong in residential and rural lifestyle sales, as well as property management. We already have a small NAI Harcourts commercial team, however, I feel it’s timely to push further into the market.

“The economy is in recovery and business confidence is up, partly due to the Christchurch rebuild and flow on effects. I want to be in a position to be the commercial market leader in the Hawkes Bay,” Mr Wilson says.

City Commercial has been operating in the Hawkes Bay for over 20 years. Former joint owners Tony Craig and Ian McLachlan, along with sales consultant Fred Lewis, have between them over 45 years of local commercial real estate experience.

During negotiations with Harcourts Regent Realty, City Commercial had over 100 listings and a strong reputation, forged by high profile deals with local, national and global corporates and developers.

Mr Craig says they had taken City Commercial as far as it was possible to go without the backing of a company with national and international exposure.

“Hawkes Bay is seeing a new round of interest being shown by investors, but more particularly developers from outside the region. Recent public announcements of new and large investments have shown the confidence that exists in the region.

“With NAI Harcourts we will have the high level of exposure and confidence that brings strong growth and further investment,” Mr Craig says.

NAI Harcourts New Zealand General Manager Richard Laery says the purchase of City Commercial and the vast experience of its sales consultants place NAI Harcourts and Regent Realty at the forefront of commercial property in the Hawkes Bay.

“We couldn’t be more pleased to bring City Commercial into the NAI Harcourts fold and welcome Tony, Ian and Fred to the team.”

Harcourts New Zealand CEO Hayden Duncan says NAI Harcourts has achieved more than half a billion dollars of business written in the past 12 months.

“This success is attracting talent such as City Commercial to NAI Harcourts and we are very happy to have them,” Mr Duncan says.

NAI Harcourts is backed by NAI Global’s international network and is represented in over 60 locations around New Zealand and seven in Australia.