Leading Melbourne real estate agents and land experts Peter Sagar and Paul Callanan have joined forces as directors with LAWD (Land, Agribusiness, Water, Development) a tier one agency and advisory firm.  

LAWD have offices in Victoria, Queensland and NSW and aim to expand nationally within the next 12 months. LAWD has brought together a team of experts across the development and agribusiness sectors. Peter Sagar and Paul Callanan will focus on development opportunities in the growth corridors of capital cities and regional centres. According to Mr Sagar, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a shift away from city centres and apartment living to suburban fringes and rural residential locations as more people embrace working from home.  

He sees his experience as a land developer with major corporates, an agent and valuer overlapping with LAWD farmer clients, seeking advice on subdivision in or near a town or regional centre. Also, he regards the combined experience he and Mr Callanan can both bring to LAWD will add value and combine the synergies of agribusiness real estate transactions with land development opportunities to achieve the best outcome for the business.

Both Mr Sagar and Mr Callanan have extensive experience in the development sector dealing in large scale greenfield site transactions and have strong ties to many public companies.

Mr Sagar stated that “The primary focus for us will be the middle to outer suburbs and regional locations in Victoria and nationally, with transactions of superlots in master planned communities and larger englobo land parcels”.

“Coming from a corporate background we also understand the need for absolute confidentiality in some circumstances as well as the value of probity and process. We specialise in deals of complexity and scale given our development, valuation and agency expertise” Mr Callanan said.

Both have extensive experience in dealing with sizeable confidential off-market transactions. “In the short term that’s going to be one of our key strengths. We are 100% client focused and trusted advisors to some of Australia’s largest developers” Mr Sagar said.

Peter Sagar moved across to LAWD as a senior director from global real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefield, where he was head of development transaction and advisory based in Melbourne for more than three years. His previous role was as executive director of Azurium, a specialist management consulting and real estate advisory practice which was previously a wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrier Hodgson. He was also leader of the company’s national real estate practice.

Before that Mr Sagar was executive director of Ferrier Hodgson, an insolvency and strategy consultancy which merged in 2019 with audit and tax advisory services firm KPMG. Overall Mr Sagar has almost 30 years’ experience in real estate and property development, including 10 years at Australia’s largest diversified property group, Stockland.

Paul Callanan who has also joined as a director, he has an extensive background in commercial real estate, having previously worked with CBRE, Savills and Cushman & Wakefield over a 12 year period. Mr Callanan has tier one corporate real estate expertise with a background in valuations and capital markets.

Both Mr Sagar and Mr Callanan are skilled at structuring and negotiating complex transactions and managing property planning and development of large-scale projects. He also has specialist expertise regarding master-planned communities, residential developments and retirement villages.