Scramble for auction gems

More than $54m worth of Queensland assets have been sold under the hammer with local developer Nic De Luca selling three properties for tight yields including a newly built Bunnings, west of Brisbane.

There were 11 Queensland assets on the block at Burgess Rawson’s latest portfolio auction with two properties passed in.

Burgess Rawson’s Glenn Conridge said of the 41 properties around Australia sold this week for $156m, Queensland assets achieved five of the top eight results in terms of tight yields.

“The market continues to go from strength-to-strength in the commercial investment property market, especially in Queensland,” he said.

“There was strong competition nationally with many of the assets bought by local Queensland private investors.

“We’re now finding there are more high net worth investors who have retired to the Sunshine state buying local properties.”

Mr De Luca’s newly built Bunnings at Plainland sold for $22.2m and realised a yield of 4.21 per cent yield.

At his Berrinba Central development, in Brisbane’s south, he also sold a KFC for $5.16m with a 3.35 per cent yield and a Salvos tenanted property for $2.7m and a 4.7 per cent yield.

Mr Conridge said 13 investors made bids on the Bunnings, all were first-time Bunnings investors, including eight from Melbourne who all bidded sight unseen.

“The Bunnings buyer and underbidder were both Melbourne-based private families who weren’t able to inspect the property because of the interstate Covid-19 border closures,” he said.

Mr Conridge said other notable sales were a recently built Carl’s Jr drive-through restaurant in Rockhampton for $3.65m and record tight yield for the city of 4.49 per cent and an Oxley shopping centre which sold for $2.42m and a 5.36 per cent yield. The Sunnybank Hills Shopping Village was passed in at $15.8m and a residential complex at Bundaberg South, for $1.43m.