Centuria has announced its entry into social and affordable housing market through a partnership with providers and owners of social housing, Compass Housing and Tetris Capital, and has committed to deliver 192 dwellings across four separate properties throughout the Hunter and Central Coast regions.
The partnership, towards which Centuria agreed to contribute around $20 million, came as part of the Commonwealth Government’s National and Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) and the NSW State Government’s Social and Affordable housing Fund (SAHF).
Also, earlier this year, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) conducted the research to help promote and conceptualise the value of social housing as an investment opportunity.
Centuria’s director and head of real estate and funds management, Jason Huljich, said the partnership represented a new growth opportunity for Centuria’s real estate division.
“The projects have an upfront take-out party secured at a pre-agreed take-out price and the new partnership will be the largest provider of social and affordable housing in the Hunter region,” he said.
“We are focused on identifying further opportunities to establish similar models, which can be rolled out across projects in other NSW regions and other states.”
Centuria’s decision to enter this new market followed an earlier redeployment of the $137 million cash consideration from the sale of its stake in Propertylink Group announced in March.
Since then, the firm retired $40 million of short term debt and settled the acquisition of the $20 million of unlisted securities in the 111 St Georges Terrace Fund in Perth, it said.
