Cashed-up mum-and-dad investors spent $73.3 million on fast food outlets, childcare centres, petrol stations and other retail properties across two days of busy portfolio auctions in Sydney and Melbourne that generated a 96 per cent clearance rate.

In what has become a familiar story in the face of sharemarket volatility and global economic ructions since the pandemic, private investors again sought the safety of brick-and-mortar assets providing annuity-style income streams via long leases to established brands, with the added bonus of strong underlying land value.