Free Consultation
Book a Free Consultation
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a purpose-built centre near new housing in Kingston to a long-established centre in North Hobart, the figure starts with what similar centres have sold for and is tested against what the rooms earn over a full year.
A Hobart childcare centre is valued mainly on sales of comparable centres, read per licensed place and as a multiple of maintainable earnings. Because Tasmanian sales are fewer, we test that evidence by capitalising earnings after a salaried centre director is costed in, and adjust for year-round occupancy, the quality rating, staffing and the lease.
Most requests follow an approach or a change in ownership. A national group has written to the owner of a Glenorchy centre asking whether it is for sale. Two owners of a centre in Clarence want to separate their interests, or one is buying the other out. A couple who built a centre together in Kingston are separating, and the Hobart registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court needs a value at a set date.
Lenders and accountants generate the rest. A bank wants a figure before it funds a second centre in the Huon Valley, or the family group that owns the business is restructuring and the ATO will expect market value on the transfer. In a state where many centres stay with one family for years, handing the business to the next generation is also a common reason.
An early valuation is useful well before any sale. Buyers of Tasmanian centres tend to be experienced groups who model every room, so a seller who knows what is holding the price back still has time to fix it: a rating stuck at Working Towards, a lease with only a few years left, or rosters propped up by agency educators.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach leads. Childcare centres change hands often enough across Australia for sales evidence to carry more weight than a forecast, and the groups that buy Hobart centres price them that way.
Tasmania produces fewer centre sales in a year than the mainland capitals, so we build the comparable set from Tasmanian sales first and widen it, where needed, to similar regional and outer-suburban centres elsewhere. Each sale is screened for licensed places, occupancy, rating, remaining lease and whether the freehold went with it, then expressed per place and as a multiple of maintainable earnings.
A sale from outside the state is never used as it stands. Daily fees, educator wages and rents differ from one catchment to the next, so a per-place figure from elsewhere is brought back to Hobart conditions before it is compared, and the report shows each of those adjustments.
We capitalise maintainable earnings once a qualified centre director's salary replaces the hours the owner puts in on the floor and in administration. A centre that looks profitable only because a family member works unpaid shows its real margin at this step.
Fit-out, furniture, outdoor play areas and equipment are taken at what they would fetch today. If the owner also holds the building, it is valued as a separate property interest, because investors price a childcare freehold on its rent and tenant, not on trading.
Two valuations of the same centre usually part ways at this step, so our reports set out each adjustment beside the reason for it. In Hobart and southern Tasmanian centres these come up most often:
The suburb shapes how a buyer reads a centre. Growth areas such as Kingston in Kingborough and parts of Clarence on the eastern shore are where newer purpose-built centres tend to appear beside new housing, often on long leases to property investors. Established suburbs such as Sandy Bay, North Hobart and Moonah have smaller centres on tighter sites, while centres in and near the Hobart CBD serve parents working in government, health and the services around the Royal Hobart Hospital.
Outer areas behave differently again. Centres in the Huon Valley, New Norfolk and the Derwent Valley draw on smaller catchments, so one competitor opening or a few families moving away can shift occupancy quickly. For those centres we look at several years of enrolment history rather than the latest term.
Tasmania adds its own layer. Services are approved and assessed against the National Quality Standard under the national law by the Regulatory Authority within the Department for Education, Children and Young People, with ACECQA overseeing the national framework. Kindergarten in Tasmania is delivered mainly through schools, so older children often attend school kindergarten on some days and the centre on others, and we check how that pattern fills the preschool room across the week.
Licensed places set a ceiling, not a result. A centre approved for 80 places that holds 58, to take an illustrative case, is valued on the 58, with credit for the gap only where the catchment and nearby supply make filling it likely.
The wider numbers point the same way. Tasmania ended 2025 to 2026 with a net 850 more actively trading businesses, a rise of 1.9 per cent to 45,094, and nationally the health care and social assistance division, which includes child care services, grew its business count by 6.7 per cent (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More sales evidence helps a seller; in a growth suburb the same trend can also bring a new competitor down the road.
Each report opens with the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records relied on, including any gaps in them. It then explains every approach considered, each normalisation adjustment and its reason, and how the results were weighed into a range, all in plain English.
That reasoning is what a second expert tests. In a property settlement in the Hobart registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court, or a dispute between co-owners in the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the other side will ask why sales were preferred to capitalised earnings and why the centre sits where it does among them.
In the Supreme Court, expert reports are governed by Part 19 of the Supreme Court Rules 2000 and the Expert Witness Code of Conduct attached to the court's Practice Direction No 1 of 2016. Every report we issue follows APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and carries the signature of a certified valuer who will stand behind it.
Ask which assumption an opposing expert would attack first, and how it would be answered. A ready reply is a good sign the groundwork has been done.
An Indicative valuation suits an owner who has been approached by a group operator and wants a figure of their own before replying. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a sale to an unrelated buyer, a co-owner buying in or out, or a lender funding another centre. A Detailed report is the level for a family law property settlement, a dispute between owners, or any matter where another expert will go through the work.
Let the likely reader decide. If the figure may be tested by a court, the ATO, a bank or another valuer, the full reasoning has to be written down.
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.