Hospitality

Hotels, motels and resorts can be an investment vehicle or simply a life style property. Many in Atlantic Canada fall within the latter category: the region’s outstanding natural beauty attracts purchasers from around the world. Whether you are an arm’s length investor or "hands on" operator … or wish to sell your property, our Brokerage Team is here to help. Our primary focus is hotel, motel and resort property in Nova Scotia but we do represent purchasers seeking to acquire this type of real estate elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Clarity and transparency are key to the relationship we have with our client. We have prepared Question and Answer (Q & A) packages for vendors and purchasers to frankly but concisely address those sensitive questions that frequently pre-define the client/broker contractual relationship. And since good fences good neighbours make, we have prepared Listing and Purchaser Representation Agreements that are straight forward: unambiguous yet well documented they define, in plain English, our obligations to you, our client.


 

Hospitality Solution Services

Our Brokerage Division provides you with the full spectrum of hospitality services: Purchaser, Vendor, Landlord and Tenant Representation. Our transactional expertise encompasses hotels, motels and resort properties located in urban and rural areas. We have an on-going relationship with private investors, public companies, REITs and "hands on" operators through work undertaken by our Property Tax and Valuation Divisions. We track all hospitality property sales in every market in Atlantic Canada. We know the players: many are clients.

Purchaser Representation

If you wish to purchase a hospitality property, Purchaser Representation is a sound strategy to adopt, particularly if you are an investor, since many larger hospitality properties are not listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service® or even with commercial brokers. A comprehensive knowledge of the properties, their fiscal and physical characteristics, ownership and state of the market is key, as is a relationship with the owner. If you are seeking a “life style” property such as an “owner operator” sized hotel, motel or resort, the various Multiple Listing Services®, commercial and residential brokers are good sources. We are one of the few commercial brokers with access to the MLS® and are able to search them in all four of the Atlantic Provinces. Irrespective of the type of hospitality property you require, we can act on your behalf to locate properties that meet your purchase criteria, advise you on their market value and negotiate the acquisition on the most advantageous terms for you.  Since we are the purchaser’s agent we are legally and morally obligated to act in your best interest: however our broker’s fee is usually recovered from the vendor.

Vendor Representation

Vendor representation occurs when the vendor retains us to sell their property. We are very familiar with hospitality properties, our Valuation Division has developed a hospitality module as part of our CompuVal® information technology platform to analyse revenue, expenses and sale prices. In order to get the most advantageous terms for the vendor we (1) reduce the risk of the transaction to the purchaser to the greatest degree possible by detailing the physical, fiscal and legal attributes of the property in a Master Sales Prospectus, (2) price the property appropriately by using our proprietary IT platform, CompuVal®, (3) expose the property to the largest number of qualified, potential purchasers. If the hotel is a “life style” property, i.e. one that appeals primarily to an owner operator, the Multiple Listing Services® are a good advertising platform. We are one of the few commercial brokers with access to the MLS®. If the hospitality property is of the size and type that appeals mainly to an investor, we expose it to our inventory of qualified, potential purchasers using CompuVal's® Prospect Sales Database and a co-broker network. We have carefully structured our sales commission so that it is “broker neutral”; we get the same fee whether we sell the property with the aid of another broker or directly ourselves. Since we have no incentive to “double end” the commission our objective is directly aligned with that of the vendor … to get the property sold! Our Brokerage staff are the product of our own seven year real estate training program which includes negotiation as a defined skill set.

Research

Our Economic Intelligence Unit uses our geographic information system (GIS) to advise hospitality purchasers, owners, managers, and vendors on the demographic, psychographic and fiscal profile of their customers and potential customers, and their competitors' customers, in the subject property’s market area. They provide clients with trade area analysis, supply and demand studies, market surveys, site selection and demographic studies.

Valuation

Our Valuation Division provides seven types of reports each tailored to the requirements of vendors, purchasers and mortgagees who need to establish the property’s market value for disposal, acquisition or financing purposes. The reports span the spectrum from a preliminary opinion of value to be utilised in broad decision making to a formal “court ready" document suitable for legal proceedings.

Property Tax Amelioration

Property taxes typically comprise a substantial portion of the property’s total operating costs. This tax burden falls right down to the bottom line and thus adversely impacts the property’s market value. Our Property Tax Division first reduces the tax load by negotiating a reduction in the assessment or by successfully appealing to the relevant court. The property is then enrolled in our PAMS® Property Tax Manager program to ensure that the tax savings so achieved are not lost in subsequent years.