One Living has bought a site at 6-14 Mona Vale Road on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Property developer One Living, backed by former Macquarie banker turned investment manager Chris Green’s investment firm, has unveiled plans to bring more institutional capital into housing to help address the national supply crisis.
The New York-based investor has focused his firm, GreenPoint Partners, on addressing the supply shortage hitting middle market housing in Australia.
It is backing the new One Living business to develop more than 1000 units along the eastern seaboard. The new firm is starting with a development along Sydney’s picturesque Mona Vale Road on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and is eyeing off more sites across the city.
It is operating at the project level – mid-range apartments that listed groups like Stockland and Mirvac rarely take on – and it will have the firepower to build and develop in parts of the market now dominated by private players.
With cost pressures rising in the industry, One Living’s model is to be a vertically integrated developer-builder, so it can respond directly to the housing gap by removing the cost inefficiencies embedded in traditional residential delivery.
“We are building a platform designed to operate at scale and starting in a market where there’s a clear need for quality, attainable housing,” One Living joint managing director Joseph Scuderi said. “It’s that missing middle – it’s that attainable end of housing … that’s what most Australians invest into and what Australians can actually afford.”
GreenPoint Partners brings years of experience assembling and scaling real estate operating businesses across major markets. And Mr Green sees a big opportunity in Australia.
“For its size, sophistication and importance to the community, Australia’s living sector has remained largely under-institutionalised, which represents significant opportunity,” Mr Green said. “GreenPoint identified that gap, assembled the right team, and is backing One Living to build a platform that is aligned to market needs.”
Mr Green said being a builder-developer would give the company the capacity and flexibility it required to deliver reasonably-priced homes. “We want it to be at that attainable level; not super high end luxury but at that attainable level,” he said.
The company plans to split its developments evenly between a portion devoted to traditional unit selling, and also keeping hold of stakes in the completed products. “A lot of that will be market led,” Mr Scuderi said.
One Living will undertake a component of affordable housing in its schemes, which it will own and operate, and it could also run build-to-rent on some sites.
Mr Green praised local policy settings. “The NSW government is being very supportive, strategic and pragmatic in terms of how do we generate more supply of housing,” he said. “We think it’s actually positive for development and the bit that’s been lacking at that attainable level is that it’s lots of relatively small private developers, whereas we want to create an institutional platform.”
The company is looking at high-density projects and could take on more institutional funding in future. “The way we will be able to achieve economies of scale is through size,” Mr Green said.
The company is capitalising on what it sees as the structural dislocation in the Australian residential sector and believes the build-to-sell living sector is ripe for institutional capital after the initial focus on build-to-rent.
While it is well-funded, Mr Green said the firm “may bring in incremental capital at some point”.
One Living’s first site is at 6-14 Mona Vale Rd on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, in a deal brokered via JLL.
It is the first site for what it intends to become a major residential force and the company has more sites in due diligence.
The Mona Vale site is targeted to provide more than 140 apartments in one of Sydney’s most supply-constrained markets, where underlying demand has outpaced new supply.
One Living’s management brings a collective 100-plus years of experience across residential development, construction, and institutional capital.
Mr Scuderi held senior positions at Mirvac and Landmark Group, and Matthew Finnimore, as joint managing director, brings experience from Macquarie Capital, Future Fund and global real estate private equity.
Industry veteran Brett Mason is non-executive chairman. He was formerly chief executive of Built, with 35 years in construction and executive leadership, and Mr Green will be a non-executive director.