B-grade Commercial Property Insights

A private Hong Kong family has swooped on a major office tower in the heart of Sydney, picking up the O’Connell St block from the Oxford Investa Property Partnership for about $315 million.

Office investors are swooping on sites around the country that were once destined to become apartment developments, with the latest play on St Kilda Rd likely to end hopes of a luxury block designed by the late star architect Zaha Hadid being built.

Boutique property house Stirling Property Funds has bought an office building in Liverpool in Sydney’s western suburbs for $46 million for a new unlisted fund.

Funds house LaSalle Investment Management is targeting the purchase of a major Sydney tower in Castlereagh St for about $325 million as the rerating of the city’s office market continues.

Canada’s Oxford Property Group, via its Oxford Investa Property Partnership, is stepping up its asset sale program to around $3 billion with the offer of a major tower in Sydney’s O’Connell St for about $310 million.

A Chinese group has swooped on an office block in the heart of Parramatta for about $82 million as Sydney’s suburban office boom rolls on, with new benchmarks being set across the city.

Private equity group Blackstone is looking to capitalise on Sydney’s hot office market by offloading an office tower in York Street it picked up from distressed Chinese company HNA at the beginning of last year.

Growing vacancy levels in second-tier office stock is creating an ever-widening gap between top-end towers and lower quality buildings, a new report from CBRE has warned.

Brisbane’s office tower market is gathering pace with a run of purchases under way showing that investors are keen to capitalise on the city’s rising rents and heavy infrastructure spending.