Billionaires swoop on office and coastal property bargains

Tumbling property prices are tempting some of Australia’s wealthiest entrepreneurs into the market.

Queensland’s richest man, mining billionaire Clive Palmer, has scooped up an office tower in Brisbane for about $20 million, claiming the yields currently available on commercial sites made property a far better place to stick your spare cash than the bank. 

Palmer’s company Mineralogy is a tenant of the building, located at 380 Queens Street in the heart of Brisbane’s CBD. The purchase price indicates a yield of around 11%, based on rental income of $2.2 millon.

Palmer told the told The Australian Financial Review that the deal was a way of soaking up some “excess cash”.

“The yields on property are a hell of a lot better than they are in the bank,” he said.

South of the Tweed River, on the New South Wales south coast, billionaire developer Lang Walker is stepping up the development of the Reflections project in the coastal town of Barings Beach.

Walker, still cashed up after selling the bulk of his portfolio to Mirvac for $1.6 billion in 2006, has publically stated he is on the hunt for downturn bargains.

In December, Walker Corporation swooped on the Reflections development after the original developer, Barings Beach Community, went into voluntary administration.

In order to improve the development’s subdued sales, Walker Corporation has dropped the price of a block from $170,000 and $150,000 and launched a $400,000 house-and-land package.

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