Geelong Advertiser
Peter Farago
Two entire blocks of flats next to Geelong’s main hospitals have generated more than $5m in sales as investors’ appetite for Victoria’s second city grows. The mid-century properties comprising 15 separate two-bedroom units were secured by investors in separate deals handled by Gartland Geelong agent Tony Young. The second of the transactions was completed last week when the three-storey Alexander Thomson Court at 57 Swanston St, Geelong, was sold. Both complexes are opposite Geelong’s University Hospital, where tower cranes surround the construction site for the new Barwon Women and Children’s Hospital. Mr Young said agents had been attempting to find buyers for individual units in the complex, but it wasn’t until the entire complex was offered that serious interest emerged. “There’s definitely huge demand for them,” Mr Young said. “A couple of individual units in the group were on the market, one with us and Maxwell Collins had one as well. I couldn’t even get anyone to look at them. As soon as it was the whole group, then it became a completely different ball game. I could have sold that particular group to five or six genuine buyers.”
The six-unit block at 72 Bellerine St sold to a Sydney investor in May for $2.11m. “She never even came to look at the property, she just relied on WhatsApp viewing and a detailed building inspection,” Mr Young said. That investor has since snapped up another unit complex in Newtown, he said. “It’s almost as if every property seminar in Australia is mentioning Geelong, it’s flavour of the month.” Mr Young said the Bellerine St complex was on a single title, but the Swanston St property was fully strata titled and had an Optus communications tower on the roof. The properties are in the heart of Geelong’s medical precinct, with seven of the nine Swanston St units leased, with the entire complex returning $170,000 a year. The Bellerine St complex returns just over $100,000 a year in rent, with individual units earning an average $330 a week.
Blocks of strata titled units are rarely offered in one parcel, although the complex offered new owners the opportunity to upgrade over a five-year plan to improve the income stream. Central Geelong unit sales have been steadily increasing, with a recent Hotspotting report identifying the suburb for future growth. The unit market has a median price of $650,000, reflecting a 5.9 per cent rise over 12 months on the back of 67 sales, according to PropTrack data.
