Commercial and residential property news
AUSTRALIAN Bureau of Statistics show the nation’s population surged 1.4 per cent last year to 22.5 million.
Victoria led the population surge recruiting 75,000 new residents in the way of immigration, more babies and a net increase from other states. The state now has 5.6 million people.
Mining states Western Australia (which gained 67,400 residents) and Queensland (66,500) were the next fastest growing states.
Read moreWhen will the options for an inner city apartment end?
With Melbourne’s recent trend of building up, rather than out – another inner city apartment tower has started construction, this time in St Kilda Road.
Read moreAUCTION clearance rates fell in both Sydney and Melbourne this weekend, according to new research from Australian Property Monitors.
Read more‘The decision today to leave interest rates unchanged provides some relief to home buyers, struggling to cope with a blowing out of their mortgage repayments as a result of successive official interest rate rises, as well as the additional interest rate increases imposed by many lenders in recent months,’ says Noel Dyett, REIA President.
Read moreLend Lease delivers strong half year profit result amid tough market conditions
* Statutory Profit After Tax up 49% to A$259.6m
* EPS on Operating Profit up 60% to 65.5 cents
* Net Operating Profit After Tax up 61% to A$262.8m Interim dividend up 23% to 43 cents a share
A legal battle between Metricon Homes, Australia’s third biggest builder, and Porter Davis Homes, the eleventh biggest – is set to get even more heated.
Read moreRESIDENTS of the north-eastern suburb of Doreen are ready to mount Supreme Court action against developer Delfin Lend Lease.
Read moreA HOUSE described by Melbourne University professor of architecture Philip Goad as one of the most important postwar residential buildings in the country, can now be yours – for a short time, anyway.
Read moreA SEVEN-bedroom, eight-bathroom Toorak mansion has fetched about $15 million.
Read moreIf walls could talk then this home at 28 Princess Street in Seddon would have plenty to say. It is etched in western suburbs history, formerly the family home of carpenter T. A. Duckworth founder Richard Duckworth.
Read moreA property many said may never be sold is expected to sell for more than $3.25 million at auction today.
Read morePaintings conservator Jacqueline Macnaughtan is selling her "sea captain’s cottage" and sailing out of South Melbourne.
Read moreLife members of Victoria’s Art Deco Society, Helen Graham and Cliff Skinner, are moving from the renovated Elwood penthouse they have enjoyed for almost 14 years.
Read moreLily, the renovated and extended Edwardian home of glass artist Liza Bush, will go to auction next month.
Read moreV8 Supercar legend Todd Kelly and his wife Kristy are selling their waterfront home in Patterson Lakes.
Read moreA SURGE in the number of skilled migrants setting up house in Melbourne is contributing to the city’s rental crisis, according to new research from Oliver Hume.
Read morePokie king Bruce Mathieson has withdrawn his Brighton mansion from the market. The five-bedroom property in Sandown Street on Brighton’s Golden Mile was mysteriously whisked off industry websites last month, sparking speculation that the house – on the market for more than $9 million 12 months ago and later reduced to $7.5 million – had actually been sold.
Read moreRE-CREATION Health Clubs has leased more than 2200 square metres of office showroom space at the corner of Tooronga Road and Malvern Road in Glen Iris.
Read moreINVESTA Property Group is continuing its push into Melbourne’s inner-eastern suburban office market, with plans for a 10,000 sq m commercial building on an Abbotsford site it owns on the banks of the Yarra River.
Read moreDEVELOPER Burbank Homes has lodged an application to redevelop the Denton Hat Mill factory, in Abbotsford. Sources say the 113-year-old heritage-protected factory will be converted into 20 townhouses, 38 apartments and nine retail shops.
Read moreMERCHANT banking heavyweight Keith Tuffley is laughing all the way to the bank, after his five-bedroom mansion in Barry Street, Kew, sold after auction for $5.8 million.
Read moreBUSINESS identity Colin Cookes is believed to be the mystery buyer of a $6.8 million apartment in the Royal Domain Towers, on St Kilda Road.
Read morePRIVATE investor demand for suburban shops continues to surge, with three shops selling at auction for far higher than their reserves.
Read moreTHE federal Liberal Party has taken a 12-month lease for about 1650 sq m of office space at 120 Collins Street. The space became available earlier this year after Citibank reorganised its office occupation, shrinking its occupancy in the premium-grade building from four levels to three.
Read moreDEVELOPER preparedness to construct property without a tenant pre-commitment is spilling into the retail sector, with middleweight developer Omni Property Group this week announcing plans to speculatively develop a bulky goods showroom and gymnasium in Carnegie.
Read moreMELBOURNE-BASED serviced-office provider Corporate Executive Offices will open its first international office in Manila in August.
Read moreBOUTIQUE property developer Piccolo Developments has paid about $6.3 million for the former Skin & Cancer Foundation’s office building in Carlton.
Read moreMELBOURNE will host the country’s inaugural home show dedicated to first-home buyers.
Read moreVICTORIAN cricketer Jon Moss has put his Elwood apartment on the market after moving locally.
Read moreWESTPAC Bank may have some explaining to do after claims it will choose the "least green" of its three shortlisted options, as its Melbourne CBD office digs.
Read moreTHE Carrick Institute of Education has leased some space for now, and some space for later at an office building in Southbank.
Read moreTHE Salvation Army will relocate its Australia Southern Territorial Headquarters to a new purpose-built office development in Blackburn.
Read moreA MYSTERY Western Australian- based syndicate of property investors swooped in to Lend Lease’s Mosaic apartment tower in Docklands last weekend, buying six units and spending $3.5 million.
Read moreINTEREST rates are likely to stay at or slightly above current levels until 2009 before heading down, according to property experts at a seminar hosted by the Urban Development Institute of Victoria at Crown Casino earlier this week.
Read moreINSIDERS are all but certain the mystery buyer of Steve Vizard’s Orrong Road mansion is Good Guys electrical retailer Andrew Muir. Early speculation was that the house had been bought by Peter Edwards of the Smorgon family but he has vehemently denied this. Mr Muir is overseas and unavailable for comment.
Read moreFORMER Melbourne deputy lord mayor and planning legal eagle Clem Newton-Brown has sold a unique 508-square-metre block of land on the banks of the Yarra in Toorak.
Read moreFEWER Melbourne CBD offices are being put on the market this year as investors hold on to assets to take advantage of rising rents and surging building values.
Read moreCAR park ratios are set to become the new buzz term in Melbourne’s fringe office market, with councils getting tougher about the number of parking bays developers can put into new office buildings.
Read moreTHE tenant representative acting for Commonwealth Bank of Australia has issued a new CBD office leasing requirement, replacing two other require-ments it put to the market late last year.
Read moreTHE Deague family’s Asian Pacific Building Corporation has swooped on a St Kilda Road site marked for residential development, in a deal worth more than $12 million.
Read moreNEW Real Estate Institute of Victoria guidelines implemented to tackle underquoting in Melbourne’s real estate game are confusing the public and creating an "alarming grey area" for agents to continue the outlawed practice, according to buyers’ advocates.
Read moreLESS than a year after paying a record $7 million for a block of land in Flinders on Western Port, former managing director of the Skilled Group Greg Hargrave and wife Mardi have put their luxury city apartment on the market, in a deal expected to be worth more than $3.7 million.
Read moreA Hawthorn home once owned by television show host and model Suzie Wilks has for an undisclosed price, believed to be around $1.3 million.
Read moreALMOST $17 million in suburban service stations changed hands this week on low yields, as demand from private investors for securely leased retail assets intensified.
Read moreAGENTS expect ground-floor rentals of a high $6000 a square metre for a Bourke Street Mall shop across the road from Myer’s main entrance.
Read moreTHE West Australian-based Aspen Group is believed to be the mystery buyer of a business park in Mulgrave, in a deal worth about $18 million.
Read morePOPULAR hotels in prime suburban strips may not escape the demolition ball either, with recent sharp increases in retail land values also affecting the best use for several of Melbourne’s biggest pubs.
Read moreHOTEL owners say next month’s indoor smoking bans will have a negative effect on their businesses, but anticipate the number of non-smoking patrons to increase in the medium term.
Read moreDEVELOPER Australand is believed to be in exclusive due diligence to buy a 3.5-hectare industrial development site in Mulgrave’s technology district in a deal worth about $15 million.
Read moreTHE Salvation Army has sold an industrial facility in Williamstown for $2.5 million.
Read moreONE of the first office buildings developed by private developer Michael Yates has managed to avoid mass vacancy when a lease to its major tenant, Thales ATM, expires next month.
Read moreMACQUARIE Goodman Industrial has bought 72 hectares of industrial land in two separate deals worth about $41 million.
Read moreDEVELOPER Stockland hopes to start demolition on its high-profile Tooronga Village shopping centre, and associated car park by the end of the year, after a consultation period regarding the controversial site lapsed. The development is expected to receive a sign-off from the minister soon.
Read moreCOMEDIAN and actress Mary Coustas sold her beachfront apartment before a scheduled auction last weekend, for an undisclosed amount believed to be around $660,000.
Read moreSCOTCH College has been bolstering its property portfolio in Hawthorn’s exclusive Scotch Hill pocket, recently snapping up two prestigious homes near its stately Morrison Street entrance.
Read moreRMIT University is believed to have paid about $7.25 million for two office buildings on Victoria Street and a development site in Cardigan Street, close to the Carlton and United Brewery site it sold to developers last year.
Read moreVISION Australia has put its heritage-listed Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind property on the market, in an expression of interest campaign that could reap the organisation about $20 million. The 1.5-hectare property at 557-563 St Kilda Road, on the corner of Moubray Street, is identified by an imposing four-level, bluestone building, part-leased to the Belgian Beer Cafe.
Read moreINSTITUTIONS bought half the shopping centres put to the Melbourne market in 2006-07, up from a third of centres bought in 2005-06.
Read moreAVERAGE industrial land values in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs increased a staggering 41 per cent in the 2006-07 financial year in anticipation of the opening of the EastLink toll road next year. Industrial land values in the east now average $325 a square metre, up from $230 a square metre this time last year.
Read moreOWNERS of Melbourne CBD office buildings held onto their properties in the 2006-07 financial year, on the back of rising rents and capital values, and a lack of alternative investment options. The gridlocked environment has resulted in record low yields being achieved for what limited major office buildings have become available.
Read moreYear 2008 will indeed be one of closure for colourful business identity, and yachting veteran Lou Abrahams.
Read moreAbbotsford is a riverside suburb, about 3 kilometres north east of the Melbourne CBD.
It is bound by Hoddle Street, the Eastern Freeway, Victoria Street and the Yarra River, and bordered by the suburbs of Collingwood, Richmond, Clifton Hill and Kew.
Read moreA local private investor has paid $16.6 million for a Queen Street office building he plans to refurbish into a “high end” B-grade property.
Read moreThe Port of Melbourne Corporation’s Channel Deepening Project intends to deepen the main commercial shipping channels in Port Phillip Bay to allow larger container ships to enter the port.
Read moreFormer Mirvac managing director Robert Hamilton should be patting himself on the back.
In January 2004, the businessman who co-founded the Mirvac development empire 35 years ago, dared criticise what was becoming a growing trend by listed property trusts in Australia – to target property assets internationally, particularly in the United States where high property yields made them attractive, relative to local property asset offerings.
Read moreFive weeks after telling shareholders the US sub-prime housing crisis has not had any impact on the operation of Centro’s US portfolio, Centro Property Group is in turmoil, with its share price crashing to less than $1.30 per share – down some 77 per cent since last Thursday, when executives imposed a trading halt of trade for the $26.6 billion fund and asset manager.
Read moreProminent real estate agent turned property developer Henry Birner will be all smiles this Christmas, reaping more than $12 million in sales at his Caulfield North residential development, the first luxury apartment offering of its kind in the south-eastern suburb.
Read moreAgents, analysts and developers unanimously tip Summer 2008 to be one of the biggest years yet for the coastal market, with suburbs along the Great Ocean Road, Port Phillip Bay and Western Port expected to be in highest demand.
Read moreIn a scene reminiscent of Melbourne’s 2001 property boom, developer Mirvac has sold out of a luxury new Docklands housing project in less than a day.
Read moreAn as-yet-undisclosed interstate developer is believed to have paid about $15 million for the former Channel 7 studios in Wells Street South Melbourne.
Read moreTen months after announcing it would pack up from the big smoke and head bush to Tatura in provincial Victoria, Unilever has sold its outgoing dry goods manufacturing facility in Knoxfield, for a price speculated to be more than $12 million.
Read moreThe Myer Family Corporation is believed to have outbid listed property institutions and other cashed up private investors for one of the best located office buildings in St Kilda Road.
Read moreComedian and radio show personality Dave O’Neill proved to be a poor judge of character at the Property Council of Australia’s monthly luncheon at Crown Casino on Wednesday.
Read moreA $65 million mixed use office park, industrial park and bulky goods centre will be built on the site of a former Amcor packaging plant in Box Hill.
Read moreIn another show of confidence for the Hawthorn office market, champion racehorse owner and property developer Les Smith has confirmed he will develop an approximate $ 30 million office building, without a tenant pre-commitment.
Read moreThe number of new homes sold in Victoria for the month of October has bucked the national trend.
Read moreAny chance of the North Melbourne football club’s Arden Street training ground being turned into townhouses and apartments has faded – for the moment anyhow.
Read moreComedian and radio show personality Dave O’Neill proved to be a poor judge of character at the Property Council of Australia’s monthly luncheon at Crown Casino on Wednesday.
Read moreAny chance of St Kilda’s iconic Astor Theatre being turned into apartments is dead and buried after private college St Michael’s did its good deed for the community, buying the property for $3.8 million.
Read moreA major ‘Mixed Use’ zoned corner development site fronting the multi lane Princes Highway at Pakenham sold at auction today for $6.55 million.
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