2025 Year in Review: Community Living

Four major events happened in the retirement living and land lease community sectors over the past 12 months that would dominate any year. 

First: the $3.85 billion sale of Brookfield Asset Management’s Aveo retirement village operator to The Living Company (Scape Australia) – the largest-ever direct real estate transaction in Australia, and arguably the story of the year. 

Second: the public float of 37-year-old Adrian Puljich’s over-50s lifestyle resorts business GemLife, which raised around $750 million in the year’s largest IPO. 

Third: the sale of RetireAustralia to Invesco Real Estate for $845 million, which co-owner Infratil said represented a loss. 

Fourth – and perhaps most significant for the sector – the Retirement Living Council’s bid to operate at true national scale. The RLC secured a backdown from the regulator, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and its Shared Care pilot with the Department of Health, Disability and Aged Care is set to run in 2026. 

Beyond these headline moves, new entrants are piling into land lease, and a pipeline of major developments has begun – or is gearing up – across both retirement living and land lease communities. 

See Ian Horswill’s recap of the year below. 

January 

• Australia’s first vertical land lease resort is approved for GemLife. The operator plans to build six multi-level buildings in Currumbin Waters on the Gold Coast, pioneering vertical retirement living. 

• Aveo is chosen by the NSW Government as its partner to turn the former Manly Hospital site in Sydney into seniors’ housing after an Expression of Interest and tender campaign.  
• Eureka Group announces plans for $25M-$30 million in asset recycling of over-55s rental communities. The operator begins selling villages, starting with Mount Gambier, South Australia to fund its growth and diversification. 
• Springtree is revealed as the name of the new land lease brand launched by Elka Capital and the Lowy Family Group-backed Assembly Funds in 2024, with an initial focus on Victorian developments. 
• Lifestyle SA MD Stephen Norris invests $2.5 million in tech solutions firm Talius. He backs technology as the future for aged care and retirement living outcomes. 
• Scape Australia is reportedly keen to buy Aveo’s villages for $3.5 billion. The student accommodation operator is among the shortlisted bidders for the Brookfield Asset Management-owned retirement giant. 

February 

• Lewis Land becomes the latest operator to enter the land lease market with a $20 million DA in Port Macquarie. Plans are lodged for a 133-home manufactured housing estate as part of the Sovereign Hills residential development.  
• Eureka Group expands into all-age rental communities. Managing Director and CEO Simon Owen takes the operator beyond over-55s housing with plans for broader rental housing accommodation. 

• Uniting NSW.ACT now identifies 68 villages for its over-55s rental model. The worsening housing crisis is driving a strategic pivot towards rental across the Not For Profit’s portfolio. 
• More than 20 village operators back the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s Shared Care trial. First proposed by the Retirement Living Council (RLC), Shared Care aims to pool residents’ home care budgets for better economies of scale and wellness supports.
• Serenitas now has a 2,300-home pipeline, according to one of its owners Mirvac, with the land lease business reporting 15% growth under new CEO Von Slater. 
• Lifestyle Communities appoints Henry Ruiz as its new CEO and plans a $100 million land sale as the operator moves to reduce debt amid the fallout from the ABC’s damaging 2024 broadcast. 

March 

• In a first for the retirement village sector, the Retirement Living Council announces an emergency meeting with the Federal Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to discuss proposed liquidity requirements for aged care operators with retirement villages. 
• BaptistCare announces a new leadership team after the successful completion of the merger between Baptcare (VIC, TAS, SA), Baptist Care SA and BaptistCare (NSW, ACT, WA). 
• The NSW Government proposes the most significant changes for the land lease community sector in a generation, which could allow more communities to be built in the state.  

• Australian Unity CEO Rohan Mead highlights the growing demographic pressures facing Australia and calls for innovation in an op-ed, prompting DCM Group CEO Chris Baynes to urge new village revenue models.  
• Industry concern rises over planned cash reserve mandates tied to aged care reforms with retirement village operators facing $20 to $200 million liquidity requirements.  
• Rohan Mead announces he will retire as Australian Unity CEO after 21 years in a major leadership shift for the sector. 

April 

• DCM Group CEO Chris Baynes writes why Scape Australia’s move to buy Brookfield Asset Management’s Aveo is good news for the retirement living sector. 
• Hometown Australia acquires Oasis Communities’ land lease communities. The Australian division of Hometown America now owns and manages 60 land lease communities across NSW, Queensland, and South Australia. 
• Vivacity Property and RF Corval expand its land lease portfolio with three new sites near Wollongong. Vivacity Managing Director Jonathon Steggles Mendez now has more than 1,000 land lease homes built, being built or in the pipeline backed by their financier.   
• Bethanie gains approval for its first land lease village Bullsbrook in Perth, the Not For Profit to enter the booming sector.

• Levande commits $2 billion for new village developments, with four sites acquired across Sydney, Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula. 
• Chiou See Anderson sells her two retirement villages, the 123-unit Elements@Springwood and the 45-unit Elements @Con Noi Carindale in Queensland, ending a long tenure as the village sector’s first female owner\operator. 

May 

• The proposed liquidity ratios are cut from 10% to 2% after lobbying by the RLC, in a significant regulatory win for retirement living operators with co-located aged care services. 
• Keyton reveals plans for nearly 1,300 new retirement units with new vertical builds and major projects near Melbourne underway. 
• Aveo's preferred buyer Scape Australia reveals a new seniors’ housing business The Living Company.  
• Claire Scapinello, the CEO at ECH, South Australia’s largest retirement living provider, resigns after three years in the role.

• GemLife eyes $700 million-plus raise and a $2 billion valuation as the Queensland land lease communities’ operator launches its initial public offering (IPO) fundraising roadshow. 
• Victoria passes major Retirement Villages Act reforms, with a Mandatory Code of Conduct among sweeping new measures. 

June 

• Brookfield Asset Management sells retirement village operator Aveo for $3.85 billion in the largest ever direct real estate transaction in Australia.   
• Two retirement living surveys show the sector is delivering 3,330 new village homes a year with $2.5 billion in new sales being pumped into the market. 
• Adrian Puljich was 28 years of age when he conceived GemLife and then convinced Singapore diversified investment business Thakral Corporation to commit 50% of funds to create the business. Nine years later, it is valued at $1.58 billion. 
• Real estate fund managers GreenFort and Gaw Capital double their land lease plans to 3,000 homes, reflecting their confidence in the market’s trajectory. 

• ReGen Living by Oliver Hume launches its first land lease community: a $130 million community in Waurn Ponds, a southern suburb of Geelong, as it makes a strategic shift. 
• Stockland debuts their largest-ever land lease project, Halcyon Bayside. The $500 million-plus community is expected to have 536 homes. 

July 

• GemLife lists on the ASX with a $1.6B valuation and nearly 10,000 sites in its pipeline. The float, which raised approximately $750 million, is the largest IPO of the year to date, even eclipsing Virgin Australia’s relisting. 

• VCAT rules Lifestyle Communities’ DMF model is illegal. The ASX-listed land lease operator, which was valued at $861.9 million and placed in a trading halt, faces mounting legal and reputational pressure.  
• The law is an ass – and it has cost Lifestyle Communities $1.5 billion and counting – DCM Group CEO Chris Baynes’ no-nonsense Opinion article. 
• Leading Conversations at the Wharf puts the future of retirement villages under the microscope. Reside Communities CEO Glen Brown, Aura Holdings CEO Sean Graham, and Eureka Group’s then-Operations Manager Andrew Hudson have their say.  

• RetireAustralia is reportedly facing an $850 million sale, just three years after the village operator, owned by NZ Super and Infratil, was valued at $1 billion.  
• Adrian Puljich’s brother Anthony takes charge of family business Living Gems, after joining the business as General Manager in mid-2024.  

August 

• The guru of aged care says retirement living’s future is private aged care. Grant Corderoy, Senior Partner at StewartBrown, pulls no punches. Watch the video: 

• Infratil confirms the “loss” on its $845 million sale of RetireAustralia to new owner, US-based global real estate management firm Invesco Real Estate.  
• The gnarly problem of dementia in retirement villages. DCM Group Editor Lauren Broomham writes residents are struggling, often in silence, to live alongside friends and neighbours who clearly need more support than a retirement village can offer. 
• Retirement village operator Keyton lifts its profit to $146 million in FY25. The operator reported a profit of $146 million for FY25, up 14.1% on the $128 million achieved the previous year, according to results released by part-owner Lendlease. 
• Cameron Taylor, appointed CEO of the For Profit Not For Profit village and aged care Sundale in May 2024, unveils his brand new executive team. 
• Watermark Residences at Newgreens Chatswood has opened: a 106-apartment retirement village delivered after 11 years, anchoring the Chatswood Golf Club’s revival via a Watermark Living-Pariter partnership. 

September  

• Is the DMF model dead? Anglicare CEO Simon Miller says yes. Speaking at the DCM Group’s Ask the Visionaries Anything breakfast in Melbourne, he revealed how Anglicare has rolled out the LDK Seniors’ Living model into two of its established communities, with plans for two more within the next year. 
• Macquarie Asset Management-backed Millbray enters the land lease market with a $2.9 billion fund and a 5,000-home target along Australia’s Eastern Seaboard.  
• Scape Australia’s Co-Founder and Joint CEO Craig Carracher reveals the Aveo deal cost closer to $4.5 billion, not $3.85 billion, and explains why.  
• NSW retirement village operators are now required to file an annual capital report after the State finalised the Retirement Villages Regulation 2025 (NSW), bringing in a number of key changes for operators. 
• 200,000 village residents in assisted living and private aged care within five years? Yes. StewartBrown Senior Partner Grant Corderoy told the Ask The Experts Anything Private Aged Care complimentary breakfasts that the DMF is likely on the way out and upfront membership is the only way to be able to deliver the staff and services this new customer will demand.  
• Keyton closed the doors on its only all-serviced apartment retirement village, Goodwin Close in Blackburn South, Melbourne, after years of struggling to attract new residents. 

November 

• Hyegrove at Willoughby has opened, HyeCorp's first retirement village in the Heart of Willoughby masterplan, delivering 111 apartments plus 42 care suites (funded and fee-for-service), alongside retail, medical and wellness facilities and the rebuilt Club Willoughby (RSL) next door. 

• The latest Leading Conversations in Sydney asked the question: is retirement living essential infrastructure?  
• Aura Holdings has completed Kingsford Terrace Corinda with the O’Neill Architecture-designed Radcliffe building – the seventh and final stage of the village, launched a decade ago – where two-bedroom unit prices have risen 108% and a 33% DMF underpins the business founded by Tim Russell and Mark Taylor. 
• Ryman Healthcare posted a NZ$45.2 million (A$39.5 million) loss for the first quarter of 2026, with vacant units rising to 1,335 at September 2025. 
• Montefiore lodges a $200 million seniors housing plan for the Masada College site in St Ives, 18km north of Sydney’s CBD. 
• Ryman Healthcare offloads another Victorian village site. The site at Mt Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula had approval for a $317 million continuum-of-care village, including 104 independent apartments, 27 assisted living suites and a 60-bed aged care centre. 
• Lincoln Place keeps on adding land lease communities – this time with DevCore. The proposed Over-50s development, now before Bundaberg Regional Council, will feature 207 two- and three-bedroom homes,  

December 

• As The Living Company weighs up taking a stake in Keyton following its record-breaking purchase of Aveo, DCM Institute Executive Director James Wiltshire asks: Is Australia ready for the first mega-operator in retirement living? 
• DCM Group CEO Chris Baynes warned operators on their village growth strategies, noting plans to build assisted living and private aged care for 350,000 extra people over a decade are mathematically unworkable. 

• Lifestyle Communities announces DMF changes for existing homeowners to shift to its new DMF model as it awaits the outcome of its VCAT appeal. 
• DCM Group CEO Chris Baynes asks: are retirement villages now real estate gold? as mature Australian village operators build – and sell – some of the best retirement villages in the world.