Highfields Plaza near Toowoomba sells through Savills for $16.3m

A shopping centre in a fast-growing area of the Toowoomba region has set a new yield record, after it was snapped up by a Melbourne investment group for more than $16m.

SOLD: The Highfields Plaza has been sold to a Melbourne private investor for $16.3m through Savills, producing a new record-low yield for the asset class in regional Queensland.

A thriving shopping centre north of Toowoomba has produced a new record yield result for regional Queensland, after it was snapped up by a Melbourne investment group for $16.3m.

Savills revealed it had sold the Highfields Plaza off the New England Highway in Highfields off-market, which is anchored by Coles and features 11 specialty tenancies.

The sale produced a passing yield of just 4.86 per cent, a record-low result for the neighbourhood shopping centre asset class in regional Queensland.

It comes nearly a year after Savills sold the previous record-holder, Toowoomba’s Drayton Shopping Centre, for $34m at a yield of 5.39 per cent.

Savills national retail investments director Peter Tyson said the compression in yields had been driven by strong demand from buyers for this asset class due to its resilience during the pandemic.

“This result continues a strong run of transactions of neighbourhood retail assets nationwide and reflects the strong demand for the asset class,” he said.

“We’re seeing more yield compression, so if you owned a neighbourhood shopping centre, you’d sell it now.”

The shopping centre was first built in 2007 and was most recently owned by Sydney-based Whistle Funds Management.