Melbourne’s inner-north continues to attract property investors in big numbers across commercial sectors, with competition for a Thornbury industrial site leading to sale at a tight 4.95% yield.
Fitzroys agents Ervin Niyaz, Terence Yeh and Chris Kombi sold 2-4 Inman Street for $2.23 million on behalf of a private owner.
The versatile single-storey, 1,700sqm brick warehouse has a high 8m clearance and three container-height roller doors, a mezzanine office, staff room and kitchenette, and is on a 1,805sqm site with an expansive frontage of more than 40m to Inman Street.
The property is leased to a long-standing tenant, a retail tyres seller.
“This was a rare offering within one of Melbourne’s most tightly held and rapidly regenerating precincts, and investors, landbankers, owner occupiers and developers recognised the incredible opportunity to secure a versatile site in this area with attractive future upside potential,” Niyaz said.
A private investor secured the site.
Niyaz said the renewal of Melbourne’s inner-north is seeing industrial properties increasingly repurposed for commercial uses, and warehouses in the precinct have become coffee roasters, breweries, clearance outlets, fitness centres and gyms, showrooms, function and events spaces, sports centres, and offices and studios.
“This has been spurred by the high rate of medium- and high-density residential development occurring throughout the area,” he said. The property is zoned Industrial 3 and is on the fringe of a General Residential Zone, and close to Thornbury High School, parklands, Darebin Creek and the Darebin Creek trail.
“Thornbury has undergone major gentrification over the past five years with a surge of high density apartment style buildings being developed, at a rate that will increase in the coming years.
“This has increased demand for retail, services, and venues, and operators are looking at interesting ways to cater for this, and warehouse-style properties offer a particular aesthetic that has become synonymous with the character of Melbourne’s inner-north.”
According to population research house .id, the City of Darebin is expected to see a 39.20% surge in population between 2019 and 2041. Rapidly changing Thornbury is cradled between Northcote, with it shares the hugely popular lifestyle strip of High Street, and Preston, and the suburbs are estimated to have a combined circa-40,000 more residents by 2041.