The Shortlist, September 2026

Antony here, from Altiera. We have either worked together or corresponded about commercial property at some point. Once a month I'll send you what I'm actually seeing in the South East Queensland commercial property market. If that's not useful, please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

The Valuer-General reissued statutory land valuations on 11 March 2026 across 15 councils and more than 560,000 properties. Six are in our South East Queensland patch.

Lockyer Valley up 56 per cent. Ipswich up 51 per cent. Noosa 37. Sunshine Coast 24. Gold Coast 23. Redland 20. On the Gold Coast, industrial land alone rose 53.3 per cent.

Brisbane City was not in this round. That is a reprieve, not an exemption.

Rates and land tax both flow from the statutory value, so one revaluation moves two cost lines. And land tax is progressive, so the tax rises faster than the valuation that caused it. On a gross leased industrial asset returning $150,000 net, an $18,000 combined increase takes roughly $300,000 off the value at a 6.0 per cent yield.

Most landlords assume a net lease solves this. For a lot of assets it does not, and two of the reasons ignore what your lease says entirely.

Deeper dive: can you pass land tax on to your tenant in Queensland?

The two situations where a recovery clause is void, the scope tests that decide whether the Act applies to you, and the other six outgoings you cannot recover from a retail tenant. About a seven minute read.

Tenanted stock with a real income figure attached is scarce. Most of what is listed is either vacant or brand new strata product. When something genuinely tenanted appears with the income published, it is worth stopping for. There has not been much of it this year.

Disclosure is getting worse, not better. A large share of listings quote an income figure without saying whether it is gross or net. That is not a rounding difference. On one asset this month the gap was over twelve per cent of the income once non-recoverable outgoings came out.

And in this price band you are often bidding against owner occupiers, not investors. An owner occupier buys amenity, not yield. They can pay a number that makes no sense on an investment analysis and still be right on their own maths. If you have been outbid on sub $5 million commercial and could not work out how, that is usually why.

The subtler problem is what happens when one of those contracts falls over. One asset I have been following this month was contracted at $3.5 million to an owner occupier and did not proceed. The building came back on the market but the number stayed. On the income it produces, and on what it would cost to get it to where it needs to be, I cannot justify value anywhere close to $3.5 million. But the vendor now has a figure he can point to, and he reads it as proven value rather than as one buyer's amenity. So the failed contract did not reopen the asset. It priced it out.

Worth asking on anything you are looking at: has this been under contract before, and to whom. A withdrawn owner occupier contract is not a comparable sale, and it will sit in the vendor's expectations long after that buyer has gone.

Around ten off market opportunities came across my desk this month. One was worth acting on. A client has moved on it, industrial with a lease already in place, and that is all I can say while it is live.

The rest are the more useful part, because off market is not a synonym for good buying, and most of them failed the same way.

An industrial building offered at $4 million as a going concern. It is 57 per cent vacant. Passing income today is $57,223 net. Fully leased, the same building makes about $237,223. And $237,223 on $4 million is 5.93 per cent.

So the price is what the asset is worth once it is finished. The buyer does the leasing, wears the vacancy, funds the incentives and the fitout contributions, carries outgoings on the empty half in the meantime, and pays as though all of that had already happened. The agent has even said the vendor will simply keep it if it leases up. That is not a seller under pressure. That is a seller checking whether anyone will pay finished money for unfinished work.

A fully leased industrial building, two tenants, $3 million. No vacancy to solve, nothing structurally wrong with it. The income is $99,655, which is 3.3 per cent net at the asking price. One of the tenant's leases expires in 2027 and is fractionally under market. Is there any value here? Not really.

The pitch was the under-rent. One tenant sits about a third below what the other signed on identical floor area three months earlier. Reset it and the income lifts roughly $13,800, which takes the yield to about 3.8 per cent. That is the entire thesis and it is not enough on its own.

And one at $3 million plus with no price, no income, no lease terms and no floor area. What it did have was a very motivated owner, an invitation to inspect next week and a request for my best offer. Motivated is not a number.

The pattern runs through nearly all of it. The vendor prices the building he hopes to own in three years and asks you to pay for it today.

That is the part worth holding onto. A vacancy is not an opportunity. The discount for the vacancy is the opportunity. An under rented lease is not an opportunity either. The discount for the wait, the risk and the fact that the tenant controls the timing is the opportunity. In most of what I get shown, there isn't one.

Occasionally there is, which is why it is still worth looking at all of them. But the honest answer is that most off market stock is a seller avoiding a market test, priced as though the test had already been passed.

If you have been shown something off market and want a second set of eyes on it, reply to this email.

Land tax is not the only thing the valuations touch. If you hold retail, the outgoings regime has its own timetable, and it is stricter than most owners expect.

If you have a retail shop lease, you must give the tenant an annual estimate of outgoings in the approved form, at least one month before the period it covers, itemised so that no single line is more than five per cent of the total. Then an audited statement within three months of the period ending, prepared by a registered auditor, comparing what you estimated against what you actually spent.

Miss either one and the tenant may withhold outgoings payments until you provide it.

Brisbane City was not revalued this round, so the next notice is the one to brace for.

And the Retail Shop Leases Act is under review, with submissions closing 5pm on 11 September.

I have read the discussion paper. The nineteen questions are about burden, disclosure timing, dispute resolution and, most usefully for owners, whether the scope and definitions still work. The terms of reference rule out rent levels, valuation methodology and broader economic factors. So do not expect the cost split between landlord and tenant to be reopened.

The scope question is the one to watch. A lease over 1,000 square metres is already outside the Act, and the definitions of retail shop lease and retail business are explicitly on the table. If those move, tenancies shift in or out of the regime, and with them the disclosure, outgoings estimate and audited statement obligations above.

One thing worth knowing while it is open. Queensland and Victoria are the only two states that ban land tax recovery from retail tenants outright. New South Wales and Western Australia both allow it on a single holding basis. The ACT and Tasmania allow it as an ordinary outgoing. Queensland sits at the strict end of the country, not in the middle of it. The Act was last reviewed in 2014, so this window does not come around often.

More next month.

Antony

Antony Acutt is the Managing Director of Altiera. We manage commercial property and buy on behalf of private investors across South East Queensland. altiera.com.au

Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice. It is what I am seeing on the ground. Check your own position with your accountant or solicitor.