Big vote of confidence
AN established drive-through bottle shop and hotel in Ingham has sold under the hammer for $1,965,000 at a Burgess Rawson portfolio auction in Sydney.
The East Ingham Hotel was among more than a dozen properties worth more than $41m which sold at the auction earlier this month.
The buyer of the hotel was an investor from Adelaide.
Burgess Rawson selling agent Michael Gilbert said there had been keen interest in the hotel because of its strong investment terms and tenancy arrangements with the ALH Group. Ingham was also a “thirsty” spot, he said. “We had about 150 inquiries for the property and something like 40 people asked for contracts,” Mr Gilbert said.
On the day, seven parties bid for the hotel via telephone hook-up.
“The property is strategically located on the Bruce Highway in Ingham and is leased to ALH (BWS) for 15 years on rare triple net terms,” Mr Gilbert said.
THE Sentinel property fund is continuing on the acquisition trail in North Queensland, looking at several properties in Townsville and Cairns and developing industrial sheds in Mackay.
The activity comes s as the fund’s managing director, Warren Ebert, is even more e bullish about the region POST-COVID than he was before the e pandemic.
Mr Ebert told d Prime Site that regions like Townsville were faring better through the pandemic than n capital cities and were e well placed to recover r faster by providing the better quality of life people were seeking.
He said people were spending more time at home were and prepared to invest in them.
Also, North Queensland’s mining sector had an important role to play in keeping people in work and providing revenue for governments.
“North Queensland has a fantastic decade ahead of it. While most people would say Townsville is not booming, people here feel much more positive (than those in capital cities). Regional areas haven’t
Warren Warren Ebert Ebert and and Michael Michael Kopittke. Kopittke. had the problems that the cities have had,” Mr Ebert said.
Sentinel has a big stake in the regions, holding some $120m worth of property at Mackay and almost $90m worth in Townsville.
Mr Ebert said they were conducting due diligence on two further potential property acquisitions in Townsville and developing an $8m warehouse facility in Mackay for a major industrial client, understood to be Bis Industries.
“We are still an active buyer up here,” he said. “We have invested $89m into Townsville a and we would like it to b be well over $100m by C Christmas.”
Mr Ebert said irresp pective of who won next month’s state election, the government would need the mining sector to succeed. “No one else is paying the royalties that will help run t the country,” he said. Sentinel acquired t the four-level Stanley S Street business centre in Townsville for about $10m earlier this year and owns the South Townsville complex which is Adani’s Townsville regional headquarters, the Central Plaza building in Flinders Street, and retail properties like the Woodlands neighbourhood centre.