Offshore buyers splash more than $1 billion on commercial property across eastern suburbs

Foreign buyers have splurged more than $1 billion on commercial properties, among them the Burwood One Shopping Centre, across Melbourne’s eastern corridor in five years.

The Maroondah Village shopping centre in Croydon North recently changed hands for $18.8 million, breaking the suburb record set when it last sold for $13.3 million in 2015.

Foreign buyers have grabbed more than $1 billion worth of major commercial properties across Melbourne’s eastern corridor over the past five years, new data by CBRE Melbourne has revealed.

And overseas buyers accounted for nearly half of all buyers (116) of the 234 properties sold through CBRE alone, the company’s Melbourne investments director, Mark Wizel, said.

The company has sold a total $2.43 billion worth of property since 2014,

Mr Wizel said most purchases had been valued under $30 million, but the list included two major acquisitions — the Burwood One Shopping Centre, which sold to a Hong Kong investor for $181.5 million, and 353-383 Burwood Hwy, Forest Hill, which was bought at an undisclosed price by a Chinese buyer.

The Tally-Ho business park in Burwood East is now foreign-owned.

Mr Wizel said there was definitely a link between foreign buy-ups and the growing population of overseas-born residents in the east.

“The fact that so many of these transactions have involved offshore investors and particularly Asian investors is no accident,” he said.

“The populations of centres like Box Hill and Glen Waverley have been largely swelled by new Asian residents, and investors, in some cases linked by family and/or finance to those residents, feel very comfortable in buying into such areas.

“What is also remarkable is that this has happened at the same time as easily the most prominent cohort here — Chinese investors — has been significantly constrained by the policies of the Chinese Government on their ability to invest abroad.’’

The 2016 Census shows the eastern suburbs, particularly Glen Waverley and Box Hill, were dominated by Chinese migrants as the second most populous group after Australian-born residents.

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In Box Hill almost 30 per cent of the population was born in China.

Other recent sales to offshore investors include: 12 Lakeside Drive, Burwood East — $25.5m; Maroondah Shopping Centre — $18.8m; 941-947 Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill — $13.3 million; 60-62 Maroondah Hwy, Ringwood — $28.3m; and, 42-50 Burwood Hwy, Burwood East — $18.17m.

The Novotel Melbourne in Glen Waverley is up for sale.

Mr Wizel said he expected an equally strong response from the international investment community to several big commercial properties now on the market, including iProsperity Group’s Century City Walk Shopping Centre and the adjoining 200-room Novotel hotel on Springvale Rd, Glen Waverley.

On 10,308sq m, Century Walk has a raft of high-profile tenants including Village Cinemas, Strike Bowling, and Pancake Parlour.