As far as Sachin Anand is concerned, his title may have changed, but his goal – helping Ottawa-based Regional Group expand its real-estate portfolio – remains the same. “We always keep our eyes open for any opportunity because you never know where it is,” the firm’s newly minted vice-president of acquisitions says. “We love complexity, […]
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As far as Sachin Anand is concerned, his title may have changed, but his goal – helping Ottawa-based Regional Group expand its real-estate portfolio – remains the same.
“We always keep our eyes open for any opportunity because you never know where it is,” the firm’s newly minted vice-president of acquisitions says. “We love complexity, we love problem-solving. We’re not afraid of big challenges, and we will look anywhere within a one-hour radius of Ottawa. We’re comfortable in our backyard.”
The Ottawa native was promoted to his new role last month after spending more than two and a half years as the firm’s senior director of acquisitions. Anand joined Regional from the banking side of the industry in early 2022 to “spearhead an acquisition strategy” for the company, which was a major player in the local real estate scene when he arrived but hadn’t pulled the trigger on a significant purchase in a few years.
That quickly changed under Anand’s watch.
Before his first year was out, Regional acquired the three-building, 224,000-square-foot Qualicum Centre class-A office complex on Baseline Road, giving its suburban portfolio a major boost.
Earlier this year, Anand’s team made an even bigger splash when Regional bought Corel’s former headquarters on Carling Avenue. Anand called the building, which is known for its unusual gold-tinted windows, an “iconic” property, praising its “resiliency” for managing to attract new tenants as other office towers hollowed out during the pandemic.
Even then, the building still had a vacancy rate of nearly 20 per cent – underscoring the fragility of a sector that had been ravaged by the widespread shift to remote work during the COVID-19 crisis.
Meanwhile, soaring interest rates that drove up the costs of borrowing to finance acquisitions sent a chill through the industry, creating what Anand calls a “disconnect between the bid-ask” that “annihilated” potential deals.
“We didn’t even buy anything in 2023,” he adds. “It’s not that I didn’t try to buy – we just couldn’t get (agreements). We will buy only when it makes sense. If we can’t get the price we need, we just walk away or say, let’s hold and wait.”
The waiting could soon be over for Anand and other would-be buyers of commercial real estate. The Bank of Canada’s recent series of interest rate cuts is starting to loosen up investors’ pursestrings, he says, and he expects the market to be considerably more active in 2025 than it’s been for the past few years.
“You’re seeing more people come to bid; you’re seeing more lenders say that they’re active in all asset classes,” he explains. “You’re seeing transactions happen. I think there’s going to be a lot more activity in the sector across all asset classes.”
