This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
TWO Victorian neighbourhood shopping centres have sold to private investors, as demand holds strong in the sub-sector.
Sold for a combined value in excess of $45 million, Wyndham Vale Square and Drouin Central are each anchored by Woolworths supermarkets and include a mix of non-discretionary specialty retailers.
Wyndham Vale Square is located in Melbourne’s outer western suburbs, around 31km out from the CBD.
While Drouin Central is located in a regional town in the state’s south east, located around 90km out from Melbourne.
JLL’s Stuart Taylor, Tom Noonan and Sam Hatcher managed the sale of the centres to local and interstate private investors via public expressions of interest campaigns.
“Both properties were acquired by new entrant buyers, with enquiry and bidding levels well above what we typically see in these sale processes,” said Taylor.
“We attribute the heightened interest to the defensive quality of the income profiles on offer, with private capital looking to the neighbourhood shopping centre sector as an attractive balance of security and yield.”
According to JLL, a combined total of $276 million in Victorian neighbourhood shopping centres transacted over 2023, up 158% on 2022 but down 53% on 2021.
While in NSW, Woolworths sold a neighbourhood shopping centre in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven region in September to a Victorian investor for $40 million, on a fully leased yield of 5.43%. Fabcot completed the Woolworths Bomaderry centre in 2020.
Fabcot’s latest offering comes to the market just as Coles Group has listed the 2021-completed Andergrove Village Shopping Centre in Queensland’s Mackay for sale.
Coles Group has also just offloaded the recently constructed Huntlee Shopping Centre in the Hunter Region of NSW for $33 million to a Sydney-based private investor, and closed 2023 with the divestment of Flagstone Village neighbourhood shopping centre in south east Queensland for more than $26 million to a high-net-worth private investor.
While earlier this month, a rare metropolitan Melbourne premium standalone supermarket with a secure lease to Coles was listed for the first time in four decades.
