This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
SUBIACO-based Qube Property has made a pair of Perth property plays covering the industrial and residential markets.
Qube Property paid $6.3 million in off-market deal for a one-hectare lot in the industrial suburb of Canning Vale. The 15-19 Ilda Road property is currently leased to UGL Limited subsidiary Industrial Asset Solutions on a recently extended five-year lease.
The property extends between Baile and Canvale Roads and provides around 1,700 sqm of building area on site with the remainder currently used by the tenant as open yard.
Qube Property managing director, Mark Hector said that while the property was currently well maintained and fit for purpose, the current low site coverage presented significant expansion or redevelopment opportunities in an area of ongoing constrained supply.
“The site’s low site coverage of approximately 17% represents significant upside for our investors, with approximately 60% of the purchase price attributable to land value alone,” he said.
“Its location in a sought-after industrial precinct only adds value in a market where there is strong occupier and investor appetite for well-located industrial assets of this nature.
Qube Property had called for expressions of interest from its investor base to fund the purchase of the site and closed the process within four hours period due to overwhelming demand.
“COVID crystallised the need for many businesses that rely on international supply chains to maintain a local network of manufacturing, storage and delivery and this has resulted in a continued very low vacancy rate across key industrial precincts like Canning Vale,” Hector said.
Justin Mabarrack of Effective Property Solutions managed the deal.
Qube Property also confirmed the purchase a 3.180-hectare urban zoned site from the WA Planning Commission within the growing Hammond Park West precinct, a30 minutes south of Perth, adjoining the group’s existing landholdings.
The Wattleup Road site will be developed into 47 residential lots and follows the company’s Hammond West, Hammond Grove and Hammond Rise developments, which have a combined yield of 400 plus residential lots. Earthworks on the newly bought site will begin before the end of the year.
Lots will range between 311 and 506 sqm. Hector said easing market conditions had seen a trend back towards smaller lots.
The site offers established amenities including a proposed local shopping centre, medical services, sporting fields, a range of public and private schools, and is located near the Aubin Grove train station.
Qube Property has also commenced the design for the development of a childcare centre next to the recently announced $26 million Wattelup East Primary School site and another next to the Apsley Mandogalup Primary School site and will be calling for expressions of interests from operators in the coming weeks.
“While residential sales have softened off the recent peak, the residential property market in WA is not experiencing anything like the correction that we are seeing on the east coast,” Hector, adding that “reduced buyer activity and negative sentiment currently being widely reported in the media is, in our opinion, based on east coast data and not what is happening in the WA market, which has a strong resources sector and the lowest unemployment level in the country”.
Qube Property has 70,000 sqm of commercial office and retail property developed and under management and land projects yielding more than 3,500 future residential lots. Hector said did not rule out the company expanding to the east coast in the mid to longer term.
