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Vol 12. No.39

Landsburys Independent Accreditation Reports

Economic Overview

	Current	+/-	Movement
$AUS/$US	101.74	-0.06
Cash Rate	4.75	Steady
90 Day Bill	4.94	+0.01
10 Year Bond	5.472	-0.036
ASX 200	4830.5	-6.0

New South Wales Property

• A private investor, Philip Duncan, has acquired an A-grade tower located at 24 Honeysuckle Drive in Newcastle for $22.5 million.
• The GHD tower is part of the twin tower HQO development and was built in conjunction with the NIB Health headquarters, developed by AMP Capital Investors and Crone Partners.
• The 6,091 square metre property ($3,694/m²) was completed in 2008 and has five levels of office space, with ground floor retail and a child care centre.
• Only one retail suite is vacant and key tenants include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, GHD, and John Holland.
• The building was designed to achieve a four star Green Star rating and a 4.5 star NABERS rating.

• Crown Group Holdings has purchased rights to build 12,000 square metres of commercial office space above the Top Ryde shopping centre.
• Crown paid $4.3 million for the development rights expanding the company’s plans to develop five residential towers at the site.
• The purchase allows the group control over the whole development enabling the company to build faster. The commercial component has about 267 car spaces and it has join access that will be shared with Crown’s residential towers.
• The acquisition brings the group’s development realisation in the precinct to about $500 million.
• All but five of the 197 apartments in stage one have sold off the plan and 1,000 have registered for stage two when expressions of interest begin in April.

Victoria Property

• Challenger Diversified Property Group is set to acquire an A-grade office building located at 31 Queen Street in Melbourne for $81 million from an FKP Property Group managed fund.
• The transaction has an equivalent yield of 8.17%.
• The 27-level building comprises office, ground floor retail and five levels of parking for 172 cars.
• Settlement is to occur on April 2.

• MAB Corporation is seeking a buyer or joint-venture partner to take on the residential land component of its Merrifield project located north of Melbourne.
• The 280 hectare property is being offered in four parcels and could achieve more than $280 million.
• The Merrifield residential precinct has a projected end value of $1 billion with the capacity for up to 4,000 residential lots.
• MAB and GPC bought the Merrifield block in 2003, from a farmer who purchased the property in 1972.
• Expressions of interest for the project close on March 31.

National Property

• The Property Council of Australia/IPD Green Property Investment Index showed office towers with environmental ratings deliver better returns both in capital growth and rental yield.
• The Index tracks returns over the past two years delivered by commercial property and covers $36 billion in office assets held by the major real estate investment trusts and unlisted wholesale funds.
• Buildings with a Green Star design or office as built rating have performed better than non-rated assets over the two years to December 2010.
• Office properties with a NABERS energy rating of at least 4 stars delivered higher returns than buildings with a rating of 3.5 stars or below.
• While overall the index found outperformance in each Green Star rating category, the best performer was 4 star rated assets.