The Bundoora Hotel at 49 Plenty Road has been listed for sale with an asking price in the mid-$60 million range, putting it among the most valuable pub assets in Melbourne.
The property sits on 7,959 square metres next to the Bundoora Square shopping centre and is leased to the ALH Group, which pays roughly $3 million a year in rent under a lease that expires in 2032 and includes a 10-year option.
Gaming continues to underpin the venue’s cash flow: the hotel’s 96 gaming machines recorded takings of $26.22 million in the last financial year, according to Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission data.
On that rental income and the advertised price, the deal would work out to about a 4.5 per cent yield, a level that helps explain investor appetite for large suburban pubs that combine land, tenancy and pokies revenue.
Records show Mazen Tabet, a prolific Melbourne hotel investor, is among the part-owners of the Bundoora Hotel; Tabet also has a recent footprint in the inner-city hotel market, including a 12-suite boutique hotel on Domain Road in South Yarra bought for about $25 million, and other venues such as the Royce, Adelphi and Lyall hotels.
The Bundoora listing arrives amid high-value hotel transactions in Sydney and Melbourne: the Royal Oak in Double Bay sold for around $100 million, the Oaks Hotel in Neutral Bay changed hands for more than $130 million, while in Melbourne the Settlement Hotel in Cranbourne fetched about $60 million in 2023 and West Waters in Caroline Springs sold for $85 million in 2022.
The current owners paid $6.082 million for the Bundoora site in 1995, shortly after gaming machines were permitted in Victoria, a purchase that has generated substantial capital growth.
JLL’s Will Connolly and Stuart Taylor, together with Steve Cropley from Cropley Commercial, are marketing the property. The strong pokies revenue and major tenant are central to the asset’s valuation.
Other hospitality listings include the Grand Hotel in Healesville, offered with an expected price north of $3.5 million. The historic pub sits on 1,509 sqm, includes 16 rooms and a beer garden, returns about $230,000 a year in rent, and last sold in 2021 for $3.3 million to the Schiavello family. Savills’ Matthew George and Tim Grant are handling that campaign.
Retail and suburban office sales were also prominent. A three-storey shop in Melbourne’s Royal Arcade, occupied by GS Diamonds on a lease that pays $124,131 a year with about 6.5 years remaining, is being offered for roughly $2.25 million by Cushman & Wakefield agents Jack Cooper, Angus Parnham and Oliver Hay.
In the suburban office market, 1 Chapel Street, Blackburn, a low-rise building of about 6,059 sqm, sold for $30.25 million to Perth-based Trident Capital. Savills’ Jamus Campbell and Nick Peden, and CBRE’s Trent Hobart were involved, and agents said buyers remain cautious but will pay for assets with limited vacancy; the building had one vacant floor for which the purchaser already had a tenant.
Other deals include 2-4 Roche Street in Hawthorn, a fully leased 2,947 sqm office that traded off-market for $24.8 million to Charlie Buxton’s Cadence Property Group and Align Property Group, with Brown Property Group staying on the ground floor under a 10-year leaseback. Separately, Natuzzi Italia has signed a 10-year lease on 483 sqm at Balmain House in Cremorne, due to open next March, and luxury retailer Kennedy Consolidated has taken about 3,300 sqm across three levels in the same building. The Footscray site housing Savers, a 3,790 sqm property with four tenants paying $904,253 a year in rent and Savers responsible for 79 per cent of that income, is being marketed with an expected price near $14.5 million.
A small inner-west developer paid about $2.5 million for a 1,239 sqm Ford Street site, a deal reported at roughly $2,000 a sqm, and the parcel included a permit for two towers totalling 78 apartments. Agents on that transaction were from Gross Waddell ICR and Nguyen Real Estate.
