Retirement village brand switches to build-to-rent sector
MELBOURNE: A major retirement village operator has now lent its brand name to the build-to-rent sector.
The Living Company, which develops institution-owned housing under brand names including Scape and Aveo, has secured development approval for a 2.2-hectare site with 1166 build-to-rent homes in Sydney’s inner west, and will start work on the site this month.
The $1.5 billion Marrickville Timberyards precinct, the first site Living Company acquired for a build-to-rent fund that includes Dutch pension fund APG, property manager Bouwinvest and Korean pension fund NPS, will have seven buildings with a range of housing types, co-founder Craig Carracher said.
“There will be an affordable housing allocation of 100 apartments,” Carracher said.
“In addition, we are engaged in discussions around specialist disability accommodation solutions. We are also considering, given the acquisition [for $3.85 billion last year from Brookfield] of Aveo, the possibility of a retirement or seniors housing piece within the 1166 apartments.”
In addition to the Marrickville Timberyards, for which The Living Co has appointed builders Dasco and Infinity Constructions, the Rent to Live fund has about 1000 other units under construction on two separate Sydney sites in Zetland and Waterloo.
It aims to have 10,000 build-to-rent homes by 2035.
The fund marks a further widening of the ambitions of Carracher and his co-founder Stephen Gaitanos – who in 2013 started student accommodation business Scape, now the country’s largest, with 19,500 beds – to develop a portfolio that currently has more than $17 billion in funds under management and 117 properties.
While The Living Company was looking to bring other types of housing under its wing – including the fast-growing land lease sector – it was not looking at buying Lincoln Place, the 26-village business that majority owner Cerberus Capital has put on the market, Carracher said.
“We’re not about to buy Lincoln Place,” he said in response to speculation The Living Company could be a buyer of the $1 billion business.
“We haven’t done the work on that.”
Carracher did not rule out extending its reach into the business that sells homes in communities to downsizing baby boomers, but said many existing land lease businesses were located in regional areas, rather than the urban locations that were the focus of his company.
“Is land lease something we’re looking at? Emphatically, yes. We look at everything,” he said.
“Is it the demographic profile where we think we can get traction? That’s a question we are exploring.”
Demolition work at the Marrickville Timberyards site will start this month, with the first 661 dwellings expected to be opened in the fourth quarter of 2028 and a further 513 by the second quarter of 2029.
There will be a mix of studio, one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments, with 10,200 square metres of public open space.
Rents will be set at a “competitive” market price, Carracher said.
“We’re not looking for the gentrification of Marrickville,” he said. “We’ve got a big target market of ex-Marrickville [renters] where young people and young families have left Marrickville because they can’t afford it. They’ve typically gone to Burwood and other next-suburb markets.”