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A month into its new era, Housing Australia has signed onto its largest ever deal which will support the delivery of nearly 1,400 new Melbourne homes.
The organisation has signed a deal of approximately $517 million to support the delivery of 1,370 new homes in the Victorian capital, which will be delivered in partnership with Community Housing (Vic) Limited (CHL), the Victorian government and industry.
Housing Australia’s funding will be primarily provided by a new sustainability bond issuance that closed yesterday. The 15-year bond is a fixed-rate note of $422 million, taking total issuance to over $2.6 million.
Dubbing the deal as “another example” of the Labor government’s housing commitments, Julie Collins, federal Minister for Housing, declared: “This is a historic day in Australia.”
“We’re [the government] working every day to ensure that more Australians have a safe and affordable place to call home,” she said.
Nathan Dal Bon, Housing Australia chief executive officer, confirmed it as the largest lending deal, stating the corporation is “delighted that the sustainability bond that is largely funding this project has attracted interest from investors including new superannuation funds”.
A Housing Australia statement revealed the AAA-rated, government-guaranteed bond mentioned above received “strong interest”.
The new homes set to be delivered as part of this deal will comprise of 650 social homes, 180 affordable homes, 470 market homes, and 55 specialist disability accommodation, with the target cohort for the social and affordable components of the project including women and children at risk of homelessness, as well as Indigenous Australians.
The Building Communities Consortium, led by CHL and Tetris Capital, alongside other specialist providers, will deliver the homes across four housing projects in the Victorian capital located in South Yarra, Prahran, Hampton East, and Port Melbourne as part of the Victoria government’s Ground Lease Model 2 project (GLM2).
Homes Victoria will lease the land to the consortium under an availability model to design, build, finance, manage and maintain the housing for 40 years, with the land remaining in Victorian government ownership.
CHL managing director Steve Bevington said: “We have had a successful partnership with Housing Australia since its inception and most notably on the Ground Lease Model Project.”
He heralded the organisation’s “ongoing commitment to funding large-scale new social and affordable housing”, given its capacity to “enable community housing providers to provide much-needed homes for hundreds of Victorians at an accelerated rate”.
“With success, we hope that the model is replicable for the renewal of public housing nationality,” he concluded.
The loan takes Housing Australia’s funding to the community housing sector to nearly $4 billion, supporting more than 19,000 new and existing social and affordable homes.
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