Chinese buyer snaps up laneway restaurant in Sydney's CBD

“It’s not bad – it started off a bit slow but in the end there were some headline results,” said Burgess Rawson director Dean Venturato said of the overall results from the day. “We’ve got very close on a few other properties and some other higher profile ones that’ll be sorted in the next few weeks.”

The 275-square-metre retail space in a heritage building in Ash Street, which is leased to the Mercado restaurant, was sold to an anonymous Chinese buyer for $5.3 million at a 4.8 per cent yield, prior to the auction. The lease runs until 2025 with options to 2035, and returns a net income of $255,300 a year.

The Spanish restaurant is co-owned by Nathan Sasi, who is also the head chef. It sits in a food hotspot close to Merival’s Ash St Cellar and Bistro Felix.

“There’s quite a little hub of restaurants in that spot. It’s in a laneway next door to several high-profile restaurants,” Mr Venturato said. “It’s the closest you’ll get to a Melbourne laneway.”

The portfolio auction also featured 12 childcare centres, 10 of which sold on the day.

“This is the biggest number of childcare centres we’ve offered in one go,” Mr Venturato said.

It included a centre in Gymea, in Sydney’s south, that sold for $2.61 million, with a yield of 4.74 per cent, and a centre in Queensland that was bought for $2.91 million with a yield of 5.58 per cent.

The second biggest sale on the day was a Shell service station in Woy Woy, on the NSW Central Coast, which was picked up for $4.55 million on a yield of 6.28 per cent, while another service station in Bray Park, Queensland, sold for $3.95 million.