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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a purpose-built centre in Craigieburn to a converted house in Camberwell: priced against what similar Victorian centres have sold for, then checked against the earnings the rooms reliably produce.
Childcare centres in Melbourne are valued mainly on comparable sales, because enough centres change hands to give real evidence. Those sales are read per licensed place and as a multiple of maintainable earnings, adjusted for sustainable occupancy, the quality rating, the lease and any funded kindergarten program, then tested by capitalising earnings with a paid centre director in place of the owner.
Most requests come with a transaction attached. An operator group has written to the owner of a large centre in Point Cook with an offer. Two siblings who built a centre in Mernda together disagree over what one should pay to buy the other out. A property settlement in the Melbourne or Dandenong registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court needs the business valued as at a fixed date. A bank wants a figure before funding a second site in Clyde. Or a family group is moving its centres into a new structure and the ATO expects a market value.
The other reason is preparation. Buyers in this sector are mostly experienced groups with their own analysts, and an owner who arrives without a considered figure is negotiating against people who have one. A valuation two or three years before a sale also shows what is holding the price down: rooms running below their licence, a lease with too few years left, a rating that needs lifting, or a roster that leans on agency educators.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach leads. Long day care centres in Melbourne sell often enough, to operator groups, private owners and investors, that real transactions say more about value than a forecast built from scratch.
We use the guideline transaction method. Sales are filtered for licensed places, occupancy, rating, unexpired lease, catchment and whether the freehold went with the business, then read as a multiple of maintainable earnings and per licensed place.
A short list of genuinely similar sales does more work than a long list of loose ones. A large purpose-built centre on a fresh lease in Wyndham and a small centre holding over in a converted house in Hawthorn are not evidence for each other, whatever month they sold in.
We capitalise maintainable earnings with the owner's own hours on the floor or in the office replaced by a paid centre director at market cost. That test catches the centres whose profit exists only because the owner works without a wage.
Fit-out, outdoor play areas, furniture and equipment at what they would fetch now, plus the building if the owner holds it. A freehold is valued as a separate property interest, because investors and operators price it on different returns.
Two valuers most often part ways over normalisation, so every adjustment appears in the report next to the reason it was made. In childcare the ones we make most often are:
Melbourne's childcare market splits along lines a buyer cares about. The growth corridors through Wyndham, Melton, Hume, Whittlesea and Casey are where large purpose-built centres open alongside new estates, often leased from investors, and where new supply can arrive faster than families do. The established eastern and bayside suburbs, from Boroondara through Glen Eira to Bayside, carry smaller centres in converted houses with long waiting lists and little room to add places. The inner north and the CBD fringe sit in between, with high rents and steady demand from working parents.
Victoria adds a layer that matters to the numbers. Many long day care centres here deliver a funded kindergarten program, so income arrives through two channels: parent fees supported by the Commonwealth Child Care Subsidy, and Victorian Government funding for the kindergarten program. The Best Start, Best Life reforms are changing funded kindergarten hours over the coming years, and a buyer will ask how that affects the centre's rooms, staffing and fees. Services are assessed against the National Quality Standard by the regulatory authority within Victoria's Department of Education, and the council planning permit often caps how many children a site can take, whatever the building could hold.
The service approval sets the ceiling, not the trading position. A centre licensed for 100 places and filling 72 is valued on the 72 it can sustain, and the gap is paid for only where the catchment's growth and nearby supply suggest it will fill. The sector is still expanding: health care and social assistance, the ABS division that includes child care services, grew its business count 6.7 per cent nationally in 2025 to 2026 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More centres means more sales evidence, and more competition for enrolments in the corridors.
Each report opens with why the valuation was done, the standard of value, the valuation date and the material we relied on, including where that material falls short. It then works through every approach we considered and the method used under each, lists each normalisation adjustment with its reason, and brings the results together into a range, with the weighting explained in plain words.
That explanation is what holds when a figure is challenged. If a report cannot say why comparable sales were preferred to an earnings model, or why the centre was placed where it was among those sales, a second expert will find the gap, whether in a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Melbourne or a dispute between co-owners in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Our reports are prepared in line with APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a certified valuer who will stand behind them.
Which assumption would a reviewing expert attack first, and how would you answer them? A clear, immediate reply is the sign the work is complete.
An Indicative valuation is a good starting point when an operator group has made an approach and you want your own figure before replying. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a sale to a private buyer, a co-owner buying in, or a bank funding a second centre. A Detailed report is the right level for a family law settlement, a falling-out between owners, or any matter where another expert will read it closely.
Who will rely on the figure decides the depth. Where a court, a lender, the ATO or an opposing expert may test it, the report needs to carry its full reasoning.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.