Smart commercial property investors will continue to generate strong income and long-term wealth regardless of the recent Federal Budget changes.

The reality is that most of the proposed reforms are aimed at residential property investors—particularly owners of established homes, rooming houses, and other residential assets that often require ongoing maintenance and are commonly reliant on negative gearing benefits.

Commercial property is fundamentally different.

Quality commercial assets are typically purchased for their income-producing ability, not their tax deductions. Well-structured commercial investments are often positively geared from day one, with tenants contributing to outgoings, longer lease terms, and rental increases built into the lease.

As a result, the Budget announcements made on 12 May have had minimal impact on the commercial property sector.

Our clients continue to focus on acquiring high-performing, often off-market commercial assets that generate positive cash flow year after year. Wealth creation in commercial property is driven by strong income, strategic asset selection, quality tenants, and rental growth—not by relying on negative gearing.

While many residential investors are reassessing their strategies, commercial investors remain well positioned to benefit from an asset class that has always been built around income, cash flow, and long-term wealth creation.

I will answer these one by one.

1. Rooming Houses

Rooming houses (whether established or newly built) are fundamentally different from commercial property investing.

While they are often marketed as "high-yield" investments, they operate much closer to a business than a passive investment. As the landlord, you are typically responsible for virtually all outgoings, maintenance, repairs, compliance requirements, utilities management, and ongoing tenant issues.

Instead of dealing with one commercial tenant, you may be managing multiple individual occupants, each with their own concerns, vacancies, turnover, and payment risks. Vacancy management becomes a constant exercise rather than an occasional event.

Once you account for maintenance costs, management fees, compliance costs, vacancy risk, and the significant time commitment involved, the headline returns often look far less attractive than they initially appear.

Commercial property, by contrast, is generally designed to be more passive, with longer leases, fewer tenants, and many outgoings recoverable from the tenant.

2. New Builds

Regardless of asset class, new-build projects require a substantial upfront investment and often involve a 9–12 month (or longer) development period before income is generated.

During that time, investors are carrying holding costs, interest expenses, consultant fees, and construction risks while receiving little or no rental income. In many cases, investors are relying heavily on future capital growth to justify the negative cash flow incurred during the build phase.

What many investors underestimate is the execution risk involved. Construction delays, labour shortages, cost overruns, defects, weather events, financing issues, and builder performance can all impact returns.

One major issue during construction can delay income generation for months or even years. Defect claims and rectification works can become expensive and time-consuming, creating additional uncertainty.

In contrast, an established commercial property with a quality tenant can begin producing income immediately after settlement.

3. Syndicate Groups

Property syndicates allow investors to pool capital and acquire larger assets that may otherwise be inaccessible individually.

While the concept is attractive, investors should understand the trade-off: higher accessibility often comes with reduced control.

In most syndicate structures, the manager or trustee controls acquisition decisions, asset management strategies, refinancing decisions, lease negotiations, and ultimately the timing of the sale. Investors receive distributions, but they generally have limited influence over how the asset is operated.

Additionally, management fees, acquisition fees, performance fees, and disposal fees can reduce overall investor returns over time.

The key question investors should ask is: who benefits most from the value created?

If you have sufficient capital and borrowing capacity, owning your own commercial property often provides greater control, greater flexibility, and allows you to retain 100% of the upside from rental growth, value-add strategies, refinancing opportunities, and capital growth.

Why I Prefer Commercial Property

Commercial property is (still) the best performing asset class because it is fundamentally an income-first asset class.

A well-selected commercial property can provide:

Positive cash flow from day one

Long-term leases

Annual rental increases

Tenants contributing to outgoings

Fewer tenant management headaches

Greater control over the asset

Multiple wealth creation levers through income growth and yield compression

For investors seeking passive income and long-term wealth creation, I believe direct ownership of quality commercial property remains one of the most effective strategies available.

We want our clients to know exactly what they are getting — Quality work with no surprises. If you use the form above to book in a discovery call with me, I can breakdown the pricing on how commercial buyers agency fees work. Note Commercial property acquisitions are more complex than residential acquisitions mainly due to contract and lease reviews. You can read more about it on our website https://crewealth.com.au/buyers-agent-fees/

Yes.

One of the biggest issues that I have seen in this industry is seeing clients get passed around by juniors and they end up being just a number in a conveyancer belt system.

When you work with CRE Wealth, you get a dedicated expert commercial property buyers agent. You will get Gold-class premium service from beginning to end. You will not get passed around like a hot-potatoe!!!!

Yes.

According to AFR report, and various data, over the past 20 years in Australia, commercial property saw significant growth ahead of residential property. Averaging around 7-8% annually.

Industrial properties (a form of commercial property) grew by 164% , and residential grew by 154% .

Farmland (commercial property in nature) grew by 254%.

Despite misconceptions due to media hype around residential market, commercial property has been outperforming residential properties for a very long time.

We have worked on over hundreds of deals in our time as a commercial specialist buyers agent and have built a great reputation in the industry. My contacts know and trust me, they are very happy to send me pre or off-market deals.

We are 100% on the buyer's side.

Unlike Sales agents who are incentivised by vendors to get the highest price for their property.

We hold ourselves to a higher standard. Anita's reputation for integrity and top-tier service stands out because she's a registered lawyer so we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

In Australia, buyers are often under-represented, and trusting sales agents to get you the rightprice is a mistake. Always get a buyers agent who's truly working for you, like us at CRE Wealth.

At CRE Wealth, we use a battle-tested due diligence process combining field experience and data-driven insights to spot red flags early. We rate risk as low, medium, or high—if it’s high risk, we don’t mess around, we advise you to walk away before wasting time or money. It’s all logic, no emotion.

We usually request that our clients have a minimum of $250,000 to $300,000 in savings or equity before they start this process. We find that those who have this will likely have a good chance in getting into commercial investing.

We buy in or near major cities. In some certain instances, we can also help to acquire in major regional areas that have good growth potential.

We focus on low risk commercial assets. We also match the right property to you depending on your risk appetite and profile.

You will need 30% deposit plus approximately 8% for purchasing costs

Yes, you should have at least $300,000 minimum in saings or equity to start with getting into commercial investing

Most people are misinformed that commercial properties have a higher risk than residential.

Do not forget that there are different types of asset classes in commercial properties in Australia such as offices, industrial, retail or shopping centres, etc.

On average industrial properties have a vacancy rate around 2% (in some instances matching similar rate to residential properties)

It also depends on where you buy. North Sydney area has next to 0% vacancy rate at the time of preparing this page.

We help you source low risk commercial assets that give you the greatest returns balancing lowest risks assets classes.

Anita is a registered lawyer (still is) and has practised law over 15 years+ advising on construction property transactions and litigations.

She has a higher standard of care than most due to her legal background. She invested, negotiated and even litigated on commercial property deals in her capacity as a lawyer, an executor of her family office, as a specialist commercial buyers agent and in her own capacity.

You will be lead by a warm and people oriented advisor that will negotiate and educate you along the way.

We would recommend industrial or medical as the lowest risk commercial asset right now.

To give you an idea, for some commercial assets the property is worth more vacant due to a strong owner occupier market. And for medical, those assets were very resilient during COVID19 pandemic.

Our strategy is to always buy in major capital cities and we typically do not buy in regional areas.

However, we do pick outliers such as major regional areas looking at different data sets that give our clients the best results

It really depends on what your financial goals are. Best way to knonw is to book in a discovery call with us.

In general (and this is not financial advice):

If you are in your 30s to 40s, and you have already built at least a portfolio size of 2 to 3 properties in residential you will need to invest in commercial properties now.

Yes.

Keep in mind that most of our clients engage us because they have reached their borrowing capacity in their residential journey

They believe their property investing journey is over. This is not the case in commercial as they may be able to access a commercial loan product called "Lease doc" Loan.

Lease doc loans tend to just assess the commercial lease itself . And ignores the debt in your residential portfolio.

This opens a whole new world of commercial lending.

Yes.

We also believe that buying commercial property in your super or SMSF is a better investment than residential.

This is because the returns are better in commercial properties compared to residential. With higher returns, the property can be paid down faster.

Always speak to a financial advisor. But make sure they have invested in commercial property themselves to be able to give balanced advice.