Apartment billionaire picks up property bargain

Harry Triguboff, the billionaire owner of apartment group Meriton, is the latest cashed-up developer to find a property bargain.

Meriton paid $17.15 million for an 8400 square metre site on Sydney’s North Shore. The site, in the suburb of Gordon, has development approval to proceed with a 149-unit, $100 million apartment tower.

Triguboff has clearly picked up a great deal – listed property company Stockland paid just over $24 million for the site six years ago. Like most listed property groups, Stockland is in the process of selling non-core assets to pay off debt.

Triguboff told The Australian Financial Review that the most important thing about the site is that is comes with development approval. He’s pledged to “defy the gloom and stagnation in Sydney” by starting building work as soon as possible.

“The demand is there. If only we could get approvals, I would build five times as many apartments and employ five times more builders,” Triguboff says.

“Getting approvals from Sydney councils is like extracting hen’s teeth. It takes us at least twice as long to get an approval as it does to build the building.”

Meriton bought sites in Zetland in Sydney’s inner-west and Pymble on the North Shore earlier this year.

Across the other side of the country in Perth, businessman Nick Tana, best known as the former owner of the Red Rooster fast food chain, paid $39 million for an office building in the CBD. The price was $3.2 million less than Macquarie Bank paid in 2007.

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