Billionaire to sell Meriton hotel amid tough Sydney unit market
The tough Sydney apartment market has led billionaire apartment king Harry Triguboff to put one of his prized hotels on the market for the first time.
The Meriton Group has listed the 199-unit Meriton Suites North Ryde, the largest hotel complex in the Macquarie Park area, with an asking price of about $150 million, as Triguboff looks to finance the construction of more Meriton apartments in Sydney’s weakening residential market.
Meriton may also sell a 59-unit older-style residential block in the Sydney suburb of Rhodes, in another unusual move for one of the nation’s largest apartment developers.
Commercial Insights: Subscribe to receive the latest news and updates
Triguboff last night conceded that Sydney’s apartment conditions were challenging, saying he is selling the serviced apartment block north of the Sydney CBD to help fund his ongoing projects in a market where sales are drying up.
“I am not getting enough sales,” Triguboff told The Australian.
“If I want to build many units … that is why I’m selling.”
The Meriton Suites North Ryde. Picture: Meriton.
Triguboff has said offshore buyer demand has been falling over the past year, and has blamed the raft of taxes aimed at foreign buyers, including the ratcheting up of stamp duty costs.
Many Chinese buyers could not settle and the apartments had to be resold in a number of apartment projects, including Sunland’s latest Brisbane project.
“The market is going down,” Triguboff recently said. “Prices have gone down about 10% from the peak.”
However, he expects the market to find a level, noting the number of buyers failing to settle their purchase and the number of “dropouts”, where buyers ask for a contract but do not proceed, has eased.
Meriton Group started work on four new Sydney projects totalling 1850 units in the past six months and will finish building nearly 1500 units in another four developments in the first half of this year, while other new projects will start shortly in Sydney and on the Gold Coast.
Triguboff also believes a serviced apartment building at Ryde would be in demand.
Billionaire developer Harry Triguboff.
“There are no serviced apartments on the market, so it could be an interesting sale,” he says.
The Meriton Serviced Apartments North Ryde record occupancies of 90%, with strong annual year-on-year revenue increases.
Triguboff has previously sold off older individual apartments.
He owns a block of 59 units in Sydney’s Rhodes that he is reviewing for sale.
Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels agents Andrew Langsford and Craig Collins are marketing Meriton Suites North Ryde, which is surrounded by competitor hotel properties such as the Holiday Inn Express, the Travelodge, the Courtyard by Marriott and the Mercure.
Sources said last night the Meriton Serviced Apartments could fetch as much as $150m but the agents would not comment.
There are solid demand drivers in the Macquarie Park area for hotels including the Macquarie Park Business Centre, Westfield, Macquarie University and various hospitals.
Expressions of interest for Meriton Suites North Ryde close on February 22.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
