More on 151-159 Willis St
Turns out Phil Stratford is still in charge of this project, seems he's turned to a different revenue stream for it. Hopefully it's been through the council's urban design panel.
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Sunday Star-Times; 20/04/2008, pD6
Park your investment here for a concrete return
Edition: A, Section: BUSINESS, pg. D6
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Rob STOCK
WE'VE HAD the "Green Gold" rush to invest in forestry, the "Black Gold" rush to profit from rising oil prices, the "Blue Gold" rush to invest in water resources, and now one property developer wants the public to invest in "Grey Gold".
Wellington-based Philip Stratford uses the term to refer to car parks - "grey" because that's the colour of the drab concrete they're made from.
Stratford is selling the freehold unit titles to 300 of the 353 spaces in a Willis St, Wellington, car parking building he owns to help fund the development of apartments on the building's roof and a serviced apartments hotel in front.
The asking price is $55,000-$60,000 plus GST, and each title comes with a "guaranteed nett 6%" yield for the first two years.
The guarantee is a personal one, not one investors pay an inflated purchase price for, says Stratford, who achieved fame and then notoriety as the founder of Renouf Properties, which was merged into Renouf Corporation, which he briefly headed as chief executive.
He then became embroiled in the collapse of investment firm Energycorp, which ultimately led to his headline- making bankruptcy in 1989.
He bases his optimism on the current occupancy rates for the car park which is managed by Tournament Parking: "The full sign is switched on three to four times a week," he said.
The addition of serviced and privately owned apartments on the roof and in front will increase that, Stratford predicted, as well as driving up the capital value of the sites.
Stratford said one major bank had agreed to provide finance of up to $40,000 on each car park. That translated as 67-73% finance, which provided a hint at the level of comfort the bank has in the car park market and the security it needs to lend into it.
Colliers' car park specialist Roger Seavill says car parking spaces have been good investments for those who bought them a few years ago and are typically selling for yields of between 6 and 8%.
While yields like that might look good compared to residential property investment, it's less than can be had by putting cash on deposit at a bank, Seavill says.
But it's not hard to find examples of unit-titled car parking spaces that have proven themselves good investments, he says.
At Auckland's old Farmers Building on Hobson St prices have risen from $18,000 at purchase a decade ago, to more than $40,000, based on recent sales, he said. Sales of some spaces have gone even higher.
Stratford talks of some recently sold unit-titled car parks in Wellington selling for upwards of $70,000.
He's confident city populations will continue to rise far faster than new car parking space becomes available.
"There are no car parking buildings being considered by Wellington City Council, and yet we are fixing up the Hutt motorway to get people into the city faster."
Traditionally, Seavill said, real estate agents haven't been too excited about selling individual car parking spaces as the sums involved were small and so were the commissions.
The market may get more profile in the coming years. Colliers has launched a website dedicated to car parking real estate,
www.carparknz.co.nz to provide a shop window for those with spaces to sell or lease.
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CAPTION:
Investing in car parks could provoke a grey-gold rush.
Picture: Neville Marriner
