Moonee Ponds properties snapped up prior to campaigns’ close as $6.5m+ worth of inner-Melbourne offices sell

Investors are ardently looking to take advantage of heightened demand for highly accessible, well-located office space in rapidly developing locations, snapping up more than $6.5 million worth of offices Moonee Ponds and South rapidly developing.

Fitzroys’ Ervin Niyaz and David Bourke sold Levels 1 & 2, 5 Everage Street, Moonee Ponds in conjunction with Patrick O’Callaghan of O&Co, for $3.2 million three weeks ahead of the Expressions of Interest campaign close, well above expectations.

Niyaz has also just sold 46 Pascoe Vale Road in the same suburb for $1.2 million prior to auction, while in South Yarra, Bourke and Lewis Waddell sold 59 Garden Street for $2.13 million.

At 5 Everage Street, the immaculately presented, fully fitted commercial office encompassing 842sqm was offered with an attractive 5+5+3+3-year lease to longstanding co-working and flexible office space provider One Plus One Business Centre, which has been in occupation for over 20 years. The lease returns $243,000 per annum plus outgoings.

“We were able to source a knockout unconditional offer that the vendor accepted prior to the campaign close,” Niyaz said. The buyer is an Australian expat living in South Africa.

“The buyer was chasing yield and saw the property offered a secure, strong cash flow, and as a rare opportunity of this size and nature in an outstanding densely populated, surging location with fantastic hospitality and lifestyle amenity,” Niyaz said.

“The post-pandemic working environment has seen more people embrace flexible working arrangements, with people looking to work closer to home in highly accessible locations with quality hospitality and lifestyle amenity. Demand for these types of spaces is expected to remain on the growth path, underpinning security of tenancy,” he said.

Niyaz said the property is in a highly sought-after location in the epicentre of the Moonee Ponds booming activity centre, surrounded by apartment towers, major redevelopment, and all the lifestyle, retail and hospitality that Puckle and Hall streets have to offer, as well as Moonee Ponds Central, anchored by Coles, Kmart and Aldi.

“Moonee Ponds is witnessing a generational boom. It’s seen delivery of the Mason Square precinct and more recently Penny Lane, which has brought apartments, retail and a new Hoyts cinema to the location, while the future $2 billion residential and lifestyle overhaul of the Moonee Valley Racecourse nearby has kicked off and will introduce 2,000 new dwellings as well as commercial space to the area.”

“Moonee Ponds ticks all the boxes, with a high-performing shopping, hospitality and lifestyle precinct anchored by Puckle Street, and excellent public transport linkages by train, tram and bus, and excellent connectivity to major road arterials and only seven kilometres northwest of Melbourne’s CBD.”

Niyaz has also just sold the vacant building at 46 Pascoe Vale Road, just moments from Moonee Ponds Junction, in which another investor put forward a strong bid, well above the circa-$950,000 expectations, which was accepted by the vendor ahead of auction.

The single-storey 110sqm building is on a generous 249sqm site within the Moonee Valley Activity Centre Zone 1, with six on-site car parks. It has been used as the offices of an architecture firm.

In one of Melbourne’s first commercial property auctions of 2024, a striking South Yarra office building sold under the hammer for $2.13 million as the suburb’s transformation continues to attract investors and owner-occupiers alike.

Fitzroys’ Lewis Waddell and David Bourke sold 59 Garden Street, South Yarra on behalf of a local family. The purchaser was a local investor.

The sale price reflected a tight 4.1% initial yield and a high land rate of $11,000 per sqm.

The property comprises a multi-level 350sqm building with immaculate light-filled office improvements, leased to highly regarded architecture firm Telha Clarke. It is on a 195sqm sqm site with on-site parking and offers favourable Activity Centre Zoning that allows for numerous redevelopment outcomes.

Waddell said multiple bidders competed for the asset.

“This attracted a strong mix of investors and a lot of owner-occupiers given how well the building presented,” he said. “The purchaser acquired the property with a long-term view in mind, taking advantage of the strong tenant covenant and the opportunity to land bank an Activity Centre-zoned site close to the upcoming $1.5 billion redevelopment of the Jam Factory and other projects in the area that will really add to its vibrancy.”