Investors expected to swoop on rare freestanding Woolworths in Maryborough
The auction of a rare freestanding supermarket in the Queensland city of Maryborough next month is set to attract plenty of local and interstate attention as investors continue to seek out strong-performing retail properties.
Supermarkets are increasingly popular for their low-maintenance, long-lease prospects in the current strong retail-leasing market, said Burgess Rawson’s Pat Kelly, who is selling the Woolworths supermarket at 270 Adelaide Street, Maryborough.
Mr Kelly said that freestanding supermarkets – those not in retail centres or shopping malls – were particularly popular with investors, and typically achieved yields as “low as 4 per cent and up to 6 per cent”.
“They’re low-management, intensive investments,” said Mr Kelly, who added that the sale would be a litmus test for the market.
“I think that the retail market has been very strong and it becomes a real test of supply and demand when you find a freestanding supermarket. They [freestanding properties] don’t generally come on the market that often, most supermarkets include specialty shops as well,” he said.
The property sits on a 6852-square-metre site. Photo: Supplied
Mr Kelly would not quote a price for the supermarket, only putting it in the “sub-$20 million range” and pointing to Burgess Rawson’s recent success auctioning a supermarket in Melbourne’s Ferntree Gully.
“In Queensland they’re quite rare. But we did have, at our last auction in Melbourne, a Coles freestanding supermarket in Ferntree Gully, which sold for $10.5 million, [on a net yield of] 3.98 per cent.”
Mr Kelly is selling the Maryborough Woolworths on behalf of a Brisbane-based family.
The Woolworths isn’t the only supermarket in Maryborough, located 250 kilometres from Brisbane, with the town also home to a Coles and Aldi.
But Mr Kelly said that sales’ volumes are high, with the supermarket close to the threshold where if takings reach a certain level additional rent is payable to the landlord.
“It’s a 20-year lease to 2033, it’s a very good trading store and it was refurbished and significantly upgraded.”
Beyond 2033 the lease incorporates three, 10-year options to 2063.
The property was extensively renovated in 2013 and is currently generating $776,674 a year in rent.
Sitting on a 6852-square-metre site, it also incorporates a 149-space car park.
The Maryborough Woolworths will go under the hammer at 11am on May 17.
