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The Property Council numbers show that in 2024, Australian businesses and governments actually occupied more office space than they exited.

Back to the office momentum a win for sector

The impact of working from home on Australian office towers is stabilising, even as businesses and employees continue to wrestle with WFH.

  • 31 mins ago
  • Robert Harley
A plot of land in Badgerys Creek

CSR land sale to fuel Sydney’s Aerotropolis dream

Up for grabs is one of the largest tracts left in the fast emerging precinct that will be home to Sydney’s new airport.

  • Nick Lenaghan

Yesterday

Return to office push a boon for landlords

The pendulum is now swinging strongly toward more workplace attendance, according to the country’s largest pure-play listed office landlord.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Wash that pooch: Australian Build-to-rent developments are low on car parks but big on amenities such as pet facilities.

Why you can have a pet – but no car – in build to rent

Good public transport access is key to Australian build-to-rent housing and car parks aren’t crucial. But that will change as the sector broadens.

  • Michael Bleby

This Month

ISPT earmarks asset sales as it revamps $18b fund

Super fund investor ISPT chalked up heavy losses ahead of its merger with IFM Investors. It is moving to fix that, with an overhaul of its $18b flagship fund.

  • Nick Lenaghan
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Realterm’s Charlotte Brabant and Toni Ryan.

This fund manager wants to spend billions on outdoor storage

Global investment manager Realterm is betting on a niche logistics property type to grow in demand as e-commerce expands.

  • Campbell Kwan
Mineral Banks is being sold for the first time in more than 90 years.

Outback Wagyu powerhouse to test appetite for top-end farms

The Taylors Plains property, which has come to the market with a $75 million guide, will be the first big test of appetite for trophy livestock properties in 2025.

  • Larry Schlesinger

January

Lendlease CEO Tony Lombardo.

Lendlease sells Capella financing unit for $235m

The Australian company’s deal with Japan’s Sojitz Corporation is the latest in a slew of businesses the activist target is selling.

  • Michael Bleby

Investors offered 9pc yield after discount DJs store deal

South Africa’s Woolworths has sold the last asset standing after its costly foray into upmarket Australian retailing. It’s also an opportunity for investors.

  • Nick Lenaghan
Metrics co-founder Andrew Lockhart says the firm has been making more equity investments.

Private credit giant Metrics takes on housing project after loan sours

The non-bank lender has taken control of an APH site in eastern Melbourne for about $14 million under revised plans to turn it into a residential development.

  • Campbell Kwan
The North West Private Hospital in Burnie, Tasmania owned by the REP fund is being expanded.

Why this fund manager is ditching malls for private hospitals

RAM says private hospitals are good investments if you buy the right ones, and is selling malls and buying healthcare assets for its ASX-listed property fund.

  • Larry Schlesinger
Up and running: Melbourne Place Hotel

A $150m hotel project that stress-tested the private credit boom

Merricks Capital, now part of Regal Partners, called in administrators when a Melbourne hotel developer defaulted on payments. The hotel has been built and sold.

  • Nick Lenaghan
The low Aussie dollar meant that US tourist numbers at the Australian Open were up by 10 per cent this year.

Hotels love that tennis now means ‘spoiling yourself’

Hoteliers have relished the boost from more tourists coming to the tennis this year because of the lower Aussie dollar.

  • Campbell Kwan
Room to move - and watch: The Australian Open has a large pool of flexible space to use for events and uses separate to the actual tennis matches.

What the Australian Open can teach Brisbane 2032

Like grand slam tennis, the biggest challenge the Olympics faces is to attract people who may not even care for the sports themselves. But that needs space.

  • Michael Bleby
An unfinished Bensons apartment block in Armadale. The home builder has entered voluntary administration.

The financier, the developer and the stoush that threatens 1000 units

Bensons Property Group put itself into administration the day a fund managed by Macquarie Private Bank’s former head tipped it into receivership.

  • Campbell Kwan
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Scape Franklin Street, in central Melbourne, is the largest asset included in the new fund and with 50,000 square metres of gross floor area, is the largest mixed-use and education building globally.

Scape draws investors to $6b student housing fund

Despite regulatory uncertainty over student numbers the sector is likely to keep growing, with a pipeline of 30,000 new beds over the next 5 years.

  • Michael Bleby
Vacant in Sydney: Pedestrians in front of the 28-level 39 Martin Place tower, which opened last year, giving office stock in the CBD a boost.

Don’t say Trump, but return to office will pick up: property bosses

Heads of the country’s largest commercial landlords avoid commenting on the US president’s executive order. But they want workers back.

  • Michael Bleby
The CPKC Stadium, home to the Kansas City Current, under construction ahead of opening day in Kansas City, Missouri, US, on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. This weekend, players will take the field for their season opener in a brand-new, $117 million stadium that its backers say is the world’s first for a women’s professional sports team.

World’s first stadium designed for women’s sports takes the field

The CPKC Stadium in Kansas gives one team a permanent base while providing inspiration for other women’s clubs in an increasingly expensive era of stadium development.

  • Mark Byrnes
StoreLocal piloted the four-level self-storage facility with coworking space at its site in Brisbane’s Hendra in 2022.

Self-storage player StoreLocal seeks growth partner; mandates Highbury

The deal comes as self-storage businesses prepare to put record-high financing costs in the rearview mirror.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Making a splash on Collins Street:   Pembroke boss Joe Fitzpatrick in the firm’s first co-working hub

Why co-working operators love the weak office market

US real estate firm Pembroke is opening its first co-working hub and others are expanding, tapping demand from tenants reticent to sign long-term leases.

  • Larry Schlesinger
Artist’s render of GreenFort Capital’s planned 422-home land lease community at Gowrie Junction in Toowoomba. 

GreenFort Capital buys two Queensland land lease sites

The fund manager wants to balance its housing offering for downsizing over-50s with other sectors such as retirement and build-to-rent.

  • Michael Bleby

Private credit star Metrics is bringing cheap(er) wine to Rockpool

The founder of Metrics, one of the biggest non-bank lenders, has his hands full overhauling Rockpool – and defending the booming sector from its critics.

  • Campbell Kwan and Primrose Riordan
The 20,000-square-metre precinct will feature six buildings (four of them residential) set around a central green square.

Canberra’s London Circuit to get $650m mixed-use precinct

Capital Property, the development company of late Rich Lister Terry Snow, is about to shape the largest CBD site ever sold by the ACT government.

  • Michael Bleby

Private empire behind property developer Bob Ell suffers profit slide

Leda Holdings has reported a near-halving in annual profit due to a higher cost of sales, according to newly filed accounts.

  • Jenny Wiggins
Mirvac Wholesale Office Fund, which owns Quay Quarter Tower (pictured) and the former AMP building, deliver positive returns for the final quarter of 2024.

Why a 1.4pc return is great news for the office market

Mirvac Wholesale Office Fund, which owns Quay Quarter Tower and the former AMP building, delivered positive returns for the final quarter of 2024.

  • Campbell Kwan

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/property/commercial