03 Jun 2024
Words The Hotel Conversation

ResortBrokers sets Newstead management rights record with over $23.7 million in sales

In just over 12 months, ResortBrokers Director of New Developments & Hotels Tim Crooks and Brisbane broker Frank Matus have transacted six management rights sales in Newstead, with a combined value of over $23.7 million, setting a new record for the prime inner-Brisbane riverside suburb.

Their recent settlement of the 184-apartment La Vida follows a string of earlier Newstead deals that included the 220-apartment Haven, 157-apartment Mode Apartments, 61-apartment Newstead Terraces, 181-apartment Gasworks Residences and 263-apartment Skyring Apartments.

La Vida, Newstead Terraces and Haven settled within the last month. Haven’s management rights were purchased by a large private group that already operates three Newstead high-rises. Their acquisition of Haven takes that number to four towers comprising some 800 apartments in total.

In neighbouring Teneriffe, Crooks and Matus have sold the management rights to the 66-apartment Fabric, with other significant businesses in the area under contract.

Mr Matus says the sale of these premium businesses reflects Newstead’s ongoing popularity at the top end of the market, as well as ResortBrokers’ national reach and approach to help transact these significant business assets.

“Newstead attracts sophisticated developers, whose buildings attract sophisticated tenants and sophisticated operators to manage them,” says Mr Matus.

“Newstead’s rental market is currently experiencing an unprecedented level of demand, with record-low vacancy rates and the strongest rents seen to date. Newstead’s inherent appeal is driving rental demand, but it’s also being affected by a shortfall in supply, which impacts a manager’s business in a variety of ways. Helping managers understand these market factors is how we are able to achieve these results for our clients.”

“The current construction pipeline will deliver 1,776 new apartments in Newstead by 2028, providing building schedules are met,” says Mr Crooks. “This falls short of the 1,904 apartments required when you apply Queensland Government Statistician’s Office population growth rates to Newstead’s population out to 2028.”

“This puts the balance of the total dwelling stock of existing projects in an undersupply position.”

Mr Crooks has brokered some of the largest management deals in the country. In 2017, he brokered the largest off-the-plan management rights transaction in Australia with sale of Gurner’s FV high-rise in Brisbane for $28 million. He was also part of the December 2023 sale of Gabba Central Apartments that saw the management rights to the 317-key complex change hands from vendor Collective Hotel Management to a private syndicate for more than $10 million, setting a post-Covid record.

Since joining ResortBrokers in 2021, Mr Matus has sold over 25 management rights businesses with a combined value of over $50 million. His listing-to-sale conversion rate is one of the highest in the industry.