Secondary commercial property, priced for its current use, not its potential.
Most secondary commercial buildings are still let, managed and valued as if a single tenant will occupy the whole space indefinitely. That assumption is where the opportunity sits.
COWAN WINDSOR buys underperforming, secondary and often part-vacant commercial buildings (typically office, industrial and mixed-commercial stock from around £250,000), and repositions them for a use that reflects how occupiers actually want space today: smaller, flexible, and let unit by unit rather than to one tenant on a long lease.
Each acquisition is assessed against three levers, and a deal only proceeds where at least one of them clearly applies.
Three levers, applied deal by deal
Subdividing a single large space into smaller workshop, trade, storage or office units, so income is earned from several occupiers rather than one.
Smaller, better-specified units typically let at a higher rate per square foot than the equivalent space let as one block.
Parking, storage, yard space, signage and EV charging, priced separately rather than bundled into a single headline rent.
What a deal usually looks like
Purchase prices typically start from around £250,000, with all-in project costs (purchase, acquisition costs and works) usually falling between £300,000 and £500,000. COWAN WINDSOR targets regional secondary markets rather than the smaller, more competitively priced lots common in the Thames Valley, prioritising yield over location premium.
Rather than underwriting every asset to an ambitious net yield, acquisitions are screened for a price at which the downside case still covers the investor's return: the discipline that sets the ceiling on what COWAN WINDSOR will pay, not just the floor on what it hopes to achieve.