Land lease more profitable than retirement living? Reside Communities pitched for sale
Brisbane-based fund manager GreenFort Capital and Hong Kong's investment management firm Gaw Capital Partners funded Glen Brown's retirement village venture launched in June 2017.
The plan was a portfolio of 1,500 village units over the next five to seven years, targeting QLD and NSW.
Glen is an FKP/Aveo alumni. Along with Tim Russell and Mark Taylor, he grew RetireAustralia (previously Meridian) from scratch to be the fourth largest village operator in the country before selling it in 2015.
It's now February 2026 and Glen's subsequent development, Reside Communities, has 1004 village units.
In June 2024, GreenFort Capital and Gaw Capital Partners launched a land lease communities business, Liven Communities, with the intention to build 1,200 homes. Then in June last year, it said it wanted to create 3,000 land lease homes.
Liven Communities has four land lease communities in Qld, with plans lodged for a fifth - a 200-home land lease communty in NSW. It appears this is their immediate focus.
Land lease communities are more akin to landlord subdivisions, Kenny Gaw, President and Managing Principal, Gaw Capital Partners, told Mingtiandi’s APAC Residential Forum last year, with manufactured homes that can be rolled out in batches of 30 or 40 at a time. Even better, the houses provide two cash flow streams: one when sold, followed by recurring rental payments to the land owner.
“And those rentals are also partially subsidised by the government,” Kenny said, “So it’s a good credit quality as well.”
Now GreenFort Capital and Gaw Capital Partners are exploring the potential sale of Reside Communities and have engaged Morgan Stanley, who advised on Aveo’s $3.85 billion sale to Scape Australia, to gauge buyer appetite for the retirement living portfolio. A sale process is expected to kick off this year, and an introductory flyer dubbed ‘Project Florida’ is now in front of potential bidders.
Interested parties are being told Reside Communities is a scalable platform for new entrants to the Australian market, or a highly attractive bolt-on for existing larger platforms.
The retirement living sector has attracted significant interest from global capital in the last 12 months, as evidenced by Aveo's transformation into a $3.85 billion business and Retire Australia's acquisition by Invesco Real Estate.
"Retirement living in Australia is underpinned by demand from a growing, wealthy customer base that will continue to outpace supply, leading to continued and consistent price growth," said a statement by Green Fort and Reside Communities.
"The Reside business benefits from strong long-term home price growth in South-East Queensland supported by full occupancy on completed homes, recently completed high end community facilities, combined with increased demand from an ageing population."
