Rawson Auctions was mandated to sell the Astoria Retail Centre, a 2,000 m2 (gross lettable area) complex sited at 117 Main Road, Hermanus (Cedric Greenwood, an agent from Rawson Auctions, managed this mandate). The lead was refereed to Rawson auctions by Jonathan Ellse from Evolveprop.

Rawson Auctions often work with other agencies on their various mandates.

Numerous bids were received on the auction day but none of them met the reserve price set by the seller. Tanya Jovanovski, franchisee for Rawson Auctions in the Western Cape, made a post-auction sale to Rafick Dawood, Managing Director of Sulnisa Property Administrators.

"This centre," said Jovanovski, "has been operating successfully for 20 years and has always been extremely popular. The current tenant line includes such nationals, corporates and chain stores as Old Mutual, Milady's, American Swiss and Finbond Bank to mention a few."

Shopping centres, like the Astoria Retail Centre, said Jovanovski, attract the type of tenants mentioned above, whose business model is concrete, making a property like this a very attractive prospect for buy-to-let investors with enough funds at their disposal.