Suburban retail is staging a comeback as more residential developments are constructed leading to a rise in demand for easy shopping by people with fewer cars.
This is more prevalent in the inner city where bikes and scooters are replacing cars, and residents are doing smaller, more frequent visits to the corner store.
Malls are in demand for a wider range of activities and are now seen as a destination, rather than the trip to do the weekly grocery shop.
As a results, strip shops are in demand from investors. The advent of the pop-up shop has also been a good fillip for the neighbourhoods' centres, where shops are not remaining empty for long.
There is also the push by the supermarkets to open smaller, more convenience style outlets of less than 300 square metres, to capture the market of flat dwellers.
It has been speculated that Aldi is looking at a small space along Military Road, Mosman.
One new sale is the 'Retail at REX', the retail component of a combined residential and retail complex located at 50 Macleay Street.
50 Macleay Street
Retail at REX features tenants such as including Australia Post, Westpac Banking Corporation, Priceline Pharmacy and City Convenience.
Knight Frank's Jonathan Vaughan, John Bowie Wilson, Andy Hu and Andrew Palmer will manage the sale exclusively on behalf of a private investor.
According to Knight Frank's associate director, Asian Markets, Andy Hu, the agents are expecting a high level of interest from both offshore and local investors.
He said demand was expected to be strong for the Retail at Rex due to its location in the tightly-held Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The agents declined to comment on a price.
"This is the first time 'Retail at REX' has traded on the market. The owner has held this asset since its redevelopment in 2002," Mr Hu said.
Another sale by LJ Hooker Commercial's Warren Duncan and Stanley Wang, is the site at 82-94 Darlinghurst Road, Potts Point.
The Potts Point area is the second most densely-populated residential area in Australia, after Haymarket and Pyrmont, with over 13,700 people per square kilometre. The main trade is labelled as "highly affluent", with an average per capita income level 88.3 per cent greater than the Sydney metropolitan benchmark and well above that of the Sydney CBD and Eastern Suburbs.
Knight Frank's sales executive city sales, Jonathan Vaughan, Retail at Rex is "strategically positioned" on one of the most high-profile corners in Potts Point.
"The high income levels of the area are directly reflected in retail expenditure, which is estimated at 43 per cent above the Sydney average," said Mr Vaughan.
According to MacroPlan Dimasi, spending on retail services is particularly high in Potts Point and surrounding suburbs, at 89.4 per cent above the Sydney average. The total retail expenditure capacity in the main trade area is expected to grow at an average growth rate of 3.5 per cent, from about $342.2 million in 2014 to $517.8 million in 2026.
