In 2018, alternative real estate fund manager GreenFort Capital with the financial clout of Gaw Capital Partners, the Hong Kong-based real estate private equity fund management firm, funded Glen Brown's Reside Communities, which provides luxury retirement living accommodation for around 1,000 seniors.
In June last year, GreenFort and Gaw Capital created an $800 million land lease community business, Liven Communities, with the stated intention to create 1,200 homes.
In January, GreenFort, architects Cottee Parker, planning consultants RPS, and landscape architects LAUD Ink lodged a development application with Toowoomba Regional Council for a $105 million 422-home land lease community on 25.09ha at Gowrie Junction, a rural locality 13km northwest of Toowoomba.
At the time, GreenFort partner Adam Vaggelas also revealed the operator had acquired 14.76ha of land at Elliott Heads, 200 metres from the oceanfront, near Bundaberg, 370km north of Brisbane, with approval in place for 328 homes. The site is part of a master-planned South Beach development that will include a shopping centre, resort and tavern.
Adam and Kenny Gaw, Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Gaw Capital Partners, told Mingtiandi’s APAC Residential Forum that the partnership is now targeting 3,000 homes.
Kenny said Gaw Capital Partners had launched Gateway Real Estate Fund VIII to raise $2 billion to support the expansion, which Adam said would focus on the East Coast, extending beyond Queensland into New South Wales and Victoria.
Kenny told the APAC Residential Forum he had told Adam to look at acquiring smaller land lease operators to achieve the scale desired.
He said the growing scale of the land lease market now allows the operator to bring liquidity to the sector. Once Liven Communities reaches 3,000 homes, it will have the scale needed to be sold.
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