23 May 2016

Hot property market fuels investment returns

1:56 pm on 23 May 2016

The strength of the property market is not just confined to houses, with demand for commercial, industrial, hotel and retail properties at unprecedented levels and prices rising strongly.

Victoria Street West in Auckland

Victoria Street West in Auckland Photo: 123RF

That's showing through in the performance of listed property companies, which in the past couple of weeks have reported hefty valuation gains and improved revenues.

Goodman Property Trust chief executive John Dakin said there was no shortage of buyers for properties which his company was looking to sell.

"From our point of view, as a long term real estate investor, it is a good time to be recycling out of some of our sort of less good assets - if I can call them that - into new developments in good locations," he said.

Meanwhile, Augusta Capital's taking advantage of the property market strength to drive its transition from a property owner and manager to a fund manager.

The company's buying properties which it then uses as the basis for investment syndicates.

Augusta's managing director Mark Francis said investors were being attracted by strong market returns.

"While there's that positive gap between borrowing costs and property yields - property will always remain attractive and we've certainly got that environment now and if you look out the yield curve, I think we've got it for some time yet," he said.

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