This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
STOCKLAND has added to its expanding land lease portfolio, purchasing 13 hectares of land in Melbourne’s south east growth corridor for $47.5 million.
The Clyde North acquisition comes soon after the developer sold off its retirement living business to EQT Infrastructure and announced a funding partnership with Mitsubishi Estate Asia for its land lease business as it reweights its portfolio.
Part of a local precinct structure plan, the proposed new Stockland Halcyon community will be located within the master-planned St German Estate and adjacent to the future St Germain Town Centre.
Nearly 280 home sites on the land will take Stockland’s land lease community portfolio to 9,000 in total across Australia.
“The Clyde North market is experiencing growing buyer demand with solid pricing expectations,” said Kingsley Andrew, executive general manager of Land Lease Communities at Stockland.
“The established St Germain Estate provides a perfect opportunity for a Stockland Halcyon community in this growth corridor with access to Melbourne.” There is an estimated target population of around 87,000 people aged over 55 within a 15 kilometre radius of the proposed community.
Stockland Halcyon has two land lease projects close by, including the under-development Stockland Halcyon Minta in Berwick and Stockland Halcyon Evergreen in Clyde.
Land lease communities allow customers to purchase their new home outright with no entry or exit fees and pay a site rental fee that covers council rates and includes access to modern community facilities for all homeowners.
Stockland expects completion of the Clyde North community in February next year.
As part of its strategy, Stockland has been looking to move away from the retirement villages business in favour of land lease communities – as well as the industrial and office sectors – and late last year revealed it would sell $2 billion of retail and retirement living assets.
In the middle of last year it acquired land lease communities operator Halcyon Group for $620 million, and flagged bringing in outside capital as part of plans to further boost its presence in the emerging sector.
Announcing the deal with Mitsubishi Estate Asia last month, Stockland CEO and managing director Tarun Gupta said the partnership would enable the group to create opportunities to scale up its land lease communities business through the delivery of the $4 billion secured development pipeline, and would generate recurring management and rental income and opportunities to deliver ongoing development margins on its land bank.
