A converted education facility now used for social housing in Christchurch has been put on the market for sale.
The large housing development in Innes Road, Mairehau is made up of four buildings with a total 73 units with shared facilities on a 9060sqm section.
The property was originally built as an education facility and sports management college for CSN College in 2005.
It was sold after the earthquake in 2013 and converted into residential accommodation and had a 100% occupancy rate with some tenants having lived there for up to eight years.
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Bayleys agent Angela Webb, who is marketing the property with colleague William Wallace, said the large section offered a lot of potential and was attracting interest from companies needing somewhere to house overseas workers.
“There’s a real shortage of rentals in Christchurch so companies looking to supply accommodation for their seasonal workers coming from overseas."
It also had enough cashflow to stack up as a good investment, she said.
“It is a very rare property. To be able to pick up something that size with that much income is quite unusual.”
Under the management of the Resicare Trust, the property is currently returning a net profit of about $700,0000 per annum and has a 100% occupancy rate.
An aerial view of the 9060sqm site. Photo / Supplied
While the property could be taken over as is, there was also a recently-issued resource consent allowing the owner to install kitchens in 12 of the units within on the buildings and convert them into self-contained studio apartments with their own titles.
Designs have also been drawn up for 18 new studio apartments at the back of the largest building on the site.
Webb said there was a lot of spare land if the new owner wished to develop it even further.
“It’s quite a substantial chunk of land. To have that size land within Christchurch – it's quite large.”
Other than the Innes Road property changing hands, Webb said she hadn’t seen any other similarly-sized accommodation property sell in Christchurch in her 15 years in real estate.
Wigram Lodge located on the ex-air force base, is the only other privately-owned accommodation of a similar size in the city. Wigram Lodge has more rooms, but the Innes Road complex has more land.
The building could be sold vacant, the new owner could sign a lease agreement with a trust to manage the social housing accommodation or could take over running it themselves.
Webb said it was too early in the campaign to get a price guide especially because the property, which is being sold be deadline, was being considered for such a range of different uses.
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