Australian Unity Investments (AUI) was working with its advisers to re-educate them about investing in Australia’s property sector, the company’s general manager of property said yesterday.
AUI general manager of property, mortgages and capital markets Mark Pratt said the financial services firm was doing a lot of work with advisers around property investment strategies for retail clients, as well as educating planners to rethink their approach to commercial property.
“Investment in commercial property at the moment is not just about income. It should be about total return over a long period. Investment in property has a three-to-five-year time horizon and we have a very firm view that … will give you good constant income,” Pratt said.
“We see one of our roles is to help educate planners into retail investment and encourage them to consider commercial property as a good spot to put your money going forward.”
Despite some retail investors having a bad investment experience in the past, following a shift in the market, he said investors were encouraged to rethink their approach to investing in commercial property.
“I think what we’ve seen in the past is that people who invested solely for income yield have had that taken away more by the loss of capital values. For their investment, it has not been a positive one at all,” he said.
He explained that it was not about investors aiming for a high yield, but the 7.5 per cent or 8 per cent constant yield possible with property.
“You are in a good position for capital value at the right return. That’s the message as part of the education we are doing,” he said.
AUI general manager of retail Cameron Dickman said property investment would provide investors with much opportunity, particularly as the industry was now “aggressively overweight in cash”.
“When we talk about property and the position it fits within the overall portfolio, this is one of the most obvious places for income streams to be generated,” Dickman said.
