Childcare centres in $18m sale

Dorado Property has bought a Western Australian portfolio of under construction or newly built childcare centres from Perth-based investment group Jarra Property for $18.49 million.

YMCA WA centres at 45-49 Porter Road in Kalgoorlie and 341 Park Street in Brabham, a Nido centre at 19 Morlup Road in Harrisdale and a Greenleaves centre at 2472 Wright Road Piara Waters sold for the combined total.

The Brabham and Piara Waters centres are still under construction, expected to be complete this year.

The Kalgoorlie centre was completed in late 2021 and settled in December, with the other three properties expected to settle within the next six months.

LJ Hooker Commercial negotiated the off-market deal, which has a blended yield of 6.1 per cent.

LJ Hooker Commercial Perth executive Jake Wallman said the transaction reflected an opportunity for Dorado to kick-start an early learning focused fund with scale, while allowing Jarra to continue its development pipeline.

“This transaction demonstrates the ongoing interest in high quality, well located Childcare assets, presenting an attractive opportunity for the Buyer to acquire four brand new centres with diversification in geography and tenant,” Mr Wallman said.

Jarra Property director Stefan Piruk said selling these assets provided confidence for Jarra to continue with its development pipeline of chlildcare centres around the state.

“The development roadmap also complements some of the other projects in our pipeline and aligns with an exciting trajectory for the childcare sector, while enabling us to gain greater excellence and efficiency with each project,” he said.

Dorado Property director David Giles said the company was drawn to childcare assets for their long-term and predictable returns, supported by government policy.

“Dorado believe the early learning sector has a number of sustainable, structural tailwinds that will continue to make it an attractive asset class to own, including strong bipartisan political support, a social drive towards workplace gender equality, and higher workforce participation rates in women,” he said.

“We are looking forward to adding further assets to the fund in due course,” Mr Giles said. 

A multi-family investment house, Dorado Property has significant assets in WA, including industrial property at Naval Base and a Perth office building.   

Jarra is also building childcare centres in Dayton and Byford.