An owner occupier has bought the former home of collapsed printing company Magnify Media. The three-storey 1392 sqm warehouse at 110-112 Murphy Street is on 818 sqm of land and fetched $4.9 million through an expressions-of-interest campaign run by Teska Carson’s Bisset and Reece Israel.
An owner occupier has bought the former home of collapsed printing company Magnify Media. The three-storey 1392 sqm warehouse at 110-112 Murphy Street is on 818 sqm of land and fetched $4.9 million through an expressions-of-interest campaign run by Teska Carson’s Bisset and Reece Israel.
At 418-420 Bourke Street, a four-storey building which houses a Peter Jackson outlet on the ground floor is back on the market.
It last traded in 2019 for $5.84 million on a skinny 2.81 per cent yield. The 417 square metre building is on a 168 sqm site with rear access to Kirks Lane.
Opposite Cbus Property’s $1 billion tower at 435 Bourke Street, it comes with a permit to convert the upper levels to three whole floor apartments.
Teska Carson agents Matthew Feld and Stephen Speck will take the property to auction on June 27 and are quoting $5 million-plus.
The popular Post Office Hotel near Richmond train station has traded quietly in an off-market deal fetching $2.75 million.
The former Richmond South post office was one of pub group Sand Hill Road’s earliest ventures in the late 2000s and was part of the leasehold portfolio purchased by listed operator Australian Venue co in 2022 for about $100 million.
The pub, at 82 Swan Street opposite the Corner Hotel, is one of a clutch of busy venues within staggering distance of the MCG. It was heritage listed in 2005 – including its interiors – and last changed hands in 2006 for $800,000. Teska Carson’s Adrian Boutsakis did the deal which reflected a 4.72 per cent yield.
Testimonial for George Takis | Sunday 11 June 2023
Jessica | Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation
Please let me say a big thank you for the wonderful generous relationship, and inspiring support you’ve always given this special hospital. Long may it continue!
It’s been a rewarding, humbling, learning experience throughout for me and I’m so very grateful to have had your company and guidance.
MEET THE TEAM AT TESKA CARSON Sue Williams | Oct 11, 2022
Shortly after Ion Teska launched his own commercial real estate company, all hell broke loose. Unemployment surged to 10.8 per cent around Australia, share prices sank by 40 per cent and a number of financial institutions crashed and burned.
It was the recession they said we had to have but, back in 1990, the outlook appeared dire for the new firm Teska Carson. Instead, it proved the perfect learning curve.
“The overarching thing I learnt was that it didn’t matter how rich a person was, or how much property they owned, the little stuff still mattered to them,” says Teska, who was a mathematician by profession before moving into real estate.
“So when properties were being managed by big international firms and they maybe left a little shop somewhere empty because there weren’t big fees involved, the owners would notice. They were hard-working people and they paid attention to every detail. And, yes, so did we.”
From that less-than-auspicious start, Teska Carson has grown to become one of the most respected commercial property firms in Victoria, with a portfolio made up mostly of retail centres and office buildings, with a small amount of industrial.
In December last year, it sold the 11-storey, 10,033-square-metre B-grade office building at 399 Lonsdale Street in Melbourne’s legal precinct for a stunning $86.8 million – after buying it for the Hong Kong-backed property company owner for $31.5 million just eight years before. The purchaser, Forza Capital, plans to give it an environmental upgrade and a quality refurbishment.
The month before, it sold a 3300-square-metre development site in Cremorne, three kilometres south-east of the Melbourne CBD and one of the largest available land parcels in the fast-emerging tech and creative hub where tenants such as Disney, MYOB, Domain, Seek and Uber operate, for $53.5 million. It was bought by Bill McNee’s Vicland Property Group.
“Our company has grown very rapidly but we like to keep that small firm boutique kind of feel,” says Teska, who now has a staff of about 80, and a $6 billion portfolio of prime commercial assets under management across Greater Melbourne.
“High-net-worth individuals are our staple and we pride ourselves on going for smart options rather than the safe options that the big corporates might choose. We’re a team of people who love coming to work and get a lot of satisfaction from building good relationships and strong connections with clients.”
Director Adrian Boutsakis, who’s been with the firm for 19 years, says another of its specialities is working on projects from before the start, liaising with developers and assisting with design, approvals and market appraisals, all the way through to product delivery. One such project was a seven-level office building at 13 Cremorne Street, on the border of Cremorne and Richmond.
“It was a creative office building in an area that’s one of the hottest pockets in Victoria,” Boutsakis says. “We worked with the client from the start through the development and then leasing out the different offices at the end.”
Historically, Teska Carson started out leasing strip retail but has also since evolved to working with big shopping centres. The company bought Pakenham Place Shopping Centre in Pakenham for one client, for instance, and is now refurbishing it and re-leasing it. It also took on Caroline Springs’ Central Shopping Centre as a managed asset, which is going through a 25 per cent refurbishment and a fresh leasing campaign.
“One of the most important things to us is the relationship scenario,” says Boutsakis. “This is very much a relationships business. We’re a privately-owned company with the directors owning the shares so we have a much greater responsibility in how we deal with clients and how we look after them, than an international conglomerate might feel.
“We build relationships over time, and loyalties. One of the commercial property portfolios we manage is for the Royal Children’s Hospital and we’re proud to be associated with them and give back to them, provide pro bono advice and assistance and donating sales commissions.”
Fellow director Steve Fein, who’s been at Teska Carson for 13 years, heads a team of 50 people in asset management, looking after more than 5000 retail, office and industrial tenancies ranging from 100 square metres to 40,000 square metres.
“I think our detailed strategies are what’s led us to have some of the biggest property players in Victoria on board,” he says. “We deal with a lot of funds, but also some of the very high-net-worth individuals who are top of the list in Victoria.
“We’ve purchased, repositioned and managed sites up to 350,000 square metres, and have a great staff, many of whom have been with us for 10 years or more. We differentiate ourselves by being much more involved in every facet of a property.”
Fifteen-year staff member Matthew Feld, another director and also an auctioneer, enjoys the culture of the company, as well as the work. “It’s somewhere where people love to work and stay for the journey,” he says. “There’s a lot of variety in our work, and we’re well known across the Melbourne market.”
An owner-occupier paid $200,000 over the reserve price to put their foot on a retail shell at the base of BPM’s Standard Brighton apartment at 209-211 Bay Street. Teska Carson’s George Takis and Luke Bisset said the buyer paid $1.3 million for the vacant 109 sq m premises.
A coffee shop at 4/183 Fitzroy Street has sold on a 4.2 per cent yield based on an annual income of $60,000 plus GST, Teska Carson’s George Takis and Stephen Speck said. The price was not disclosed but it is believed to be north of $1.4 million.
Another retail/office space with development upside at 168 Wellington Street sold for $1.8 million in a deal brokered by Teska Carson’s Reece Israel and Michael Ludski. The two-level 240 sq m building is returning $60,000 a year in rent from two ground-floor tenants.
A dental clinic at 707 Malvern Road sold to an investor on a tight 3.7 per cent yield for $3.8 million. The clinic has operated for 23 years in the 265 sqm building on a 467 sqm site, Teska Carson’s Michael Ludski said.
An unrenovated weatherboard house at 47 Reynolds Parade sold for $1.22 million at a feisty Teska Carson auction. George Takis said six bidders pushed the price more than $150,000 above the reserve after 72 bids.
