Caltex puts 25 development sites on the market

Caltex Australia has put 25 properties to market in the first tranche of a 50 property divestment strategy. 

The 25 service station/convenience store properties include 16 in New South Wales, seven in Victoria, one in WA, and one on the Gold Coast.

Caltex chief development officer, David Bridger, confirmed the strategic release of the first tranche of the sale of 50 freehold metropolitan sites was aimed at the apartment and mixed use market. 

The properties will be sold through CBRE and Stonebridge with purchasers having options to buy individual sites, sites in any combination or the offering as a whole. 

Locations include Surfers Paradise, Bondi, Mascot, Box Hill, and Perth.

CBRE Director Investments, Mark Wizel said the portfolio offered an opportunity for apartment, mixed use, retail, hotel and build-to-rent developers. 

"These sites are being offered at a time of strong ongoing demand for low to medium rise apartments which are now in short supply, due to the lack of development site opportunities within metro areas, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney," Wizel said. 

"The fact that the bulk of the sites are extremely well located to transport, schools and town centres make them ideal for apartments but for the same reasons they are also well suited to a range of other uses."

He said the offering had also come at a time when developers were looking to the suburbs for well-located low/medium rise opportunities. 

"Coincidentally those type of projects are ones which the banks are now much more amenable to providing funding for," Wizel said. 

He said market drivers such as the improving domestic residential clearance rate, low interest rates, and ongoing population growth would also be top of mind for prospective purchasers. 

Recent CBRE research revealed an almost 30% rise in Asian buyer’s total spending from $880 million in 2017/2018 to $1.135 billion over the 2018/2019 financial year in Melbourne alone with nearly 80% of investment sales since June 1/2019 involving Asia-based investors.