Commercial Property Sells Well at Sydney Auction

Over $25 million worth of property was sold by Colliers International at a large Sydney auction recently. Many of the buyers appeared to be private investors looking for a safer haven for their retirement savings than the fickle stock market or abysmally low money market rates.

Spanish restaurant Capitan Torres, Liverpool Street sold for $7.7 million after a long auction which had six seriously interested bidders.

Several mortgagee in possession properties were also under the hammer. A vacant block in Darlinghurst, sold for $2.35 million, $700k over reserve, after a heated fight between 5 interested parties. Obviously none of those people had heard about the real risk of seriously over-paying for mortgagee properties at auction!

Overall the sale had a 50% clearance rate which is good enough to get the press positively excited these days, especially in the Sydney market. The market commentators are picking that investors are finding the current low interest rates attractive, just hope they stay that way for a while and people keep their jobs and tenants to keep paying the rent.

Meanwhile there are still fears for what will happen after the end of June’s cut off for the increase in the first home buyer’s grant….