The resilience play — Alex Cook
One of Australia's most experienced, respected and highly awarded management rights brokers on what survives the market's mood swings, and what doesn't.
Since joining ResortBrokers in 2011, Alex Cook has settled more than 230 transactions of assets with a combined value exceeding $800 million. A ResortBrokers' Director since 2018, he is REIQ's 2023 Commercial Salesperson of the Year and ARAMA's 2023 Broker of the Year, an award he previously received in 2019.
He continues to focus on large-scale transactions nationwide, with a particular emphasis on off-the-plan developments as well as the short-stay/hotel sector. His career-defining transactions include the 2015 sale of the management rights to Peppers Soul Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast for $25.7 million, a then-record result, and the 2024 sale of the neighbouring Rockhampton CBD hotels The Edge and Empire for more than $10 million.
On surviving the cycle
- Q: You've now been through two full cycles. What actually holds value when the mood turns?
- A: The boring buildings. A good body-corporate committee, a full letting pool, books that reconcile to the cent. When finance tightens, that's what a lender will still lend against. The trophy on the beach with a tired committee and a 40% pool — that's the one that re-prices first.
- Q: And what evaporates?
- A: Anything that depended on the story rather than the numbers. If the value was in 'imagine what you could do here', the next buyer can't borrow against imagination.
"The buildings that hold their value are boring. Good committee, full pool, clean books. Nobody writes a magazine story about boring."
What the data says
Alex is also one of the principal authors of ResortBrokers' annual Management Rights Report, the only quantitative study of its kind examining the industry's impact nationwide, now in its fourth edition.
The Cook Checklist
Before he'll take a building to market, four things have to be true:
- Committee minutes that show a functioning relationship
- Letting pool above 60% of lots
- Agreement term with 15+ years remaining
- Three years of books that reconcile without heroics
Advice to a first-time buyer
Cook's counsel to career-changers hasn't changed in a decade: buy the operation you can actually run on a Tuesday in February, not the one that looks good in the summer brochure. He's still on the same desk, still working the same corridor. When we asked whether he'd ever move to a flashier patch, he laughed: "The boring patch made everyone here a living for forty years. I'm not about to get clever now."
