This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
OFFSHORE commercial property investors accounted for around half of all commercial property transactions throughout Melbourne’s eastern suburban corridor over the past five years.
CBRE data shows offshore buyer accounted for 116 of 234 transactions negotiated by the firm over the period, spending more than $1 billion out of the combined $2.43 billion from those deals.
Mark Wizel, CBRE director – investments said the bulk of the acquisitions had been in the sub-$30 million range, although major deals have included the Burwood One Shopping Centre, selling to a Hong Kong investor for $181.5 million, and 353-383 Burwood Highway in Forest Hill, purchased for circa $88 million by Poly Holding, which recently picked up the 2.62-hectare site next door for $45.85 million in a deal negotiated by Colliers.
Wizel said there was no doubt a link between offshore investments in the region and the growing populations of overseas born residents.
“The fact that so many of these transactions have involved offshore investors and particularly Asian investors is no accident. The populations of centres like Box Hill and Glen Waverley have been largely swelled by new Asian residents, and investors, in some cases linked by family and/or finance to those residents, feel very comfortable in buying into such areas,”
Fairfax Media (now Nine) analysis of the 2016 Census study showed Chinese migrants are the second most populous group after Australian-born residents in the eastern suburbs including Glen Waverley and Box Hill, with nearly 30% of Box Hill’s population born in China.
“What is also remarkable is that this has happened at the same time as easily the most prominent cohort here – Chinese investors – has been significantly constrained by the policies of the Chinese Government on their ability to invest abroad,” Wizel said.
Other major sales to offshore investors across the eastern suburbs have included state government-tenanted office buildings at 12 Lakeside Drive, Burwood East for $25.5 million, and at 60-62 Maroondah Highway in Ringwood for $28.3 million; a Burwood East Woolworths for $18.17 million, and a string of shops at 941-947 Whitehorse Road in Box Hill with development upside for $13.3 million.
Major assets in the region currently on the market include iProsperity Group’s Century City Walk Shopping Centre and the adjoining 200-room Novotel Melbourne hotel on Springvale Road in Glen Waverley.
Australian Property Journal
