A stunning 30-hectare oceanfront caravan park in Victoria has been sold after what has been described as ‘a highly competitive sale process’.
The Collendina Caravan Park, a 30-minute drive from Geelong on Victoria’s famous Surf Coast, has been owned by the same family for the past 40 years.
The 328-site park – which has extensive recreational facilities as well as a ‘private’ track to the adjacent surf beach – has been acquired by the Hampshire Property Group for a price that remains confidential.
The now ex-owners of the park, Bill and Joan Steains, said they were delighted that the difficult decision to sell had resulted in the park being passed into the ‘safe hands’ of Hampshire Property Group.
“Over the past 37 years we have worked hard to develop Collendina into the wonderful family park that it is today and we feel confident that the park will continue to grow from strength to strength under Hampshire’s ownership,” they said. “While it will be hard for us to say goodbye to the lovely families in our Park, we feel comforted knowing that Hampshire is the perfect fit and is keen to continue our legacy”.
The Hampshire Property Group, is an Australian family-owned business which has been recently making a number of park acquisitions around Australia.
“We are very pleased to be able to acquire this exceptional holiday park,” CEO, Frank Sharkey told the Hotel Conversation. “We look forward to building on the magnificent work of the Steains family, continuing to serve existing annual holiday makers and introducing more Victorians to this wonderful holiday location”.
The selling agents, JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group, said they had never experienced the level of enquiry that they had in the Collendina sales campaign.
“Given the outstanding attributes of the park, its enormous ocean front land parcel and location at the gateway to Victoria’s surf coast, we were confident in a strong result however this campaign exceeded all expectations,” said vice-president, Nick MacFie. “The demand for caravan parks within Victoria is at an all-time high with us now having a number of disappointed under bidders who are seeking similar opportunities.”
JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group’s head of investment sales, Peter Harper, said the caravan park sector had become increasingly institutionalised over the past few years with major groups raising and deploying significant volumes of capital for acquisitions and asset enhancement.
“However, this sale also demonstrated the number of private owner-operators who are looking to expand from a single asset or further build on their existing portfolios,” he said. “Parks that are well presented and situated on large land allotments remain highly sought after and we anticipate the level of transaction activity that occurred last year to continue throughout 2022.”
Well if there are so many keen buyers it goes to show that there is big money to be made from caravan parks.
And possibly re development down the track Mmmmmm, ya just never know eh 😉
Not really a good investment by the new owners, it’ll be either washed away or underwater in the not too distant future.
It would have been safer to have bought something on higher ground.
What’s the bet that as it’s now in”safe hands” the property will be subdivided into hundreds of tiny blocks with tiny Lego block houses with their rooflines about one meter apart.