A bank building in the Sydney suburb of Coogee has sold for $11.2 million
A Coogee gym owner has fought off a clutch of other investors to snap up a bank building in his suburb for $11.2 million at auction.
The two-storey property in the Sydney beachside suburb has been a branch of the Commonwealth Bank for decades and has just been leased for a further three years to the bank, giving the new owner a net income of about $410,000 a year.
On the main thoroughfare through Coogee and about 250 metres from the sand, the building had the potential for redevelopment, given its zoning and the 12-metre height limit, according to the listing.
At Tuesday’s auction, 16 bidders vied for the building with 585 square metres of floor space, and this competition pushed the sale price about $2.5 million over its reserve, said agent Gemma Isgro, associate director at CBRE Sydney, who sold the property along with her colleagues Nicholas Heaton and Henry Robertson.
The result equated to a net yield of 3.6 per cent, which for a building such as this was “probably the sharpest yield for a long time”, she said.
Since COVID-19, local investors had become the dominant buyers of commercial property along the eastern suburbs beaches, out-muscling those from overseas, she said.
They knew these properties well and could see the business value in them and were often willing to pay a higher price as a result.
The successful buyer owns a gym a few hundred metres down the road. The underbidders were also from the Coogee area, Ms Isgro said.
