Long game delivers $5.5m windfall for Queensland family

Patience has proven to be a lucrative virtue for a savvy family of investors who spent more than 20 years gradually acquiring an entire block of townhouses in Brisbane’s inner west.

In a strategy straight from a Monopoly board, the Melbourne-based family of investors are enjoying a $5.5 million windfall after selling the complete block to a local private investor/developer.

Foga Lodge, located at 53 Coonan St, Indooroopilly, comprises nine townhouses on 2192sqm of land and is only 150m from the redeveloped Indooroopilly Shopping Centre.

Robert Dunne, Savills director of commercial sales, says the vendors spent 20 years acquiring all the individual titles in Foga Lodge as part of a long-term investment strategy, before offering the complete property holding to the market.

He says the new owner intends to hold the property as is in the short-term, before investigating future development opportunities.

The site has the potential for a 77-apartment development with a gross floor area of 6575sqm.

“This property is ideally located next to Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and in close proximity to range of public transport, schools, the Brisbane River, the University Queensland, golf courses and other sporting and community facilities,” Dunne says.

A family has sold a development site in Indooroopilly after acquiring nine townhouses over 20 years.

“The size and positioning of the property attracted a very high level of buyer enquiry, including 130 interested parties and seven separate offers.”

Indooroopilly, in Brisbane’s sought-after inner west, is positioned between the prestige suburbs of St Lucia and Chelmer.

Dunne says Indooroopilly is increasingly popular with residents and investors alike, following the major $450 million redevelopment and expansion of the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, which was completed in 2015, and the surrounding dining precinct.

The maturing suburb also provides convenient access to multiple public transport links and the new Legacy Way Tunnel road network connects to the airport and all parts of the city.

Notably, investors rushed to acquire properties in the nearby nine-level $67 million Westside project when it was launched earlier this new.

Twenty residences were sold within three weeks of the development’s launch in April, with completion not expected until January 2018.

The luxury apartment development is similarly within 300m of Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, in a suburb where new developments are rare.

Developer Village Building Company’s Queensland development manager Sam Burgess said Indooroopilly was unique in that new developments were few and far between, unlike suburbs such Mt Gravatt and Chermside.