Regional Queensland development sites top list of most distressed commercial assets: LandMark White

The most common commercial property assets that falls into the hands of receivers are development sites in regional Queensland, according to the September quarter update to the LandMark White forced sales monitor.

The monitor tracks all commercial properties that are listed for sale in the print media and counts any that are listed are labelled as a receiver or mortgagee sale as a forced sale.

According to LandMark White, vacant residential development sites in regional Queensland, which accounted for 8% of all recorded forced sales nationally.

Across all asset types, Queensland has accounted for nearly one out of every two (48%) forced commercial properties sales over the past 12 months to September.

Over the September quarter there were 151 commercial properties listed as forced sales, down marginally from 153 in the June quarter, with 43% of these properties located in Queensland.

This was above the national average of 39% over the September quarter.

Of the properties in New South Wales that were advertised in the September quarter, only 16% were distressed sales, compared with the annual figure of 24%.

In Victoria, the proportion of forced sales was only 11%, compared with 13% over the past 12 months.

LandMark White says it is unsurprising that Queensland has the largest share of forced sales over the past year.

Recent distressed sales in Queensland include 388 hectares of waterfront land known as Clarkes Cove (pictured below) in Cape Gloucester in the Whitsundays, which sold for $2.55 million at the end of August through Christie Leet & Rob Taylor of PRDnationwide in a mortgagee sale.

The picturesque block of land is bounded by the Dryander National park on three sides and Pacific Ocean on the fourth side and had been targeted for development as a large-scale tourist facility with three resort hotels offering a total of 810 rooms.

It had an open market valuation of $2.98 million in February 1999.

Nationally, development sites accounted for 34% of the total in the September quarter, against an average of 32%, while sites with a holding income comprised 9% of the September results, against an annual average of 10%.

The second most common property type listed for forced sale were vacant residential development sites in regional NSW (5.2%) and third most prevalent were income producing retail properties in regional Queensland, which accounted for 5.1% of all forced sales over the past 12 months.

Across the broad commercial property sectors, office and retail property had the poorest results of the September quarter, as 18% of office and 31% of retail properties were forced sales.

The industrial property sector had the biggest improvement, falling to 19% from 35% in June, which was also below its 12-month average.

Over the 12-month period, 32% of forced sales were in NSW and only 8% in Victoria.

Since the series began 12 months ago, a total of 2,095 properties have been advertised for sale in the national press, and 27% (573) were specifically listed as being in the hands of mortgagees, receivers, or liquidators.