Already a subscriber?There’s more than a handful of Rich Listers whose road to fortune places them squarely in the middle of a national housing crisis.
Gurner Group boasts a pipeline with 12,000 apartments to be built. That portfolio extends from Brisbane and the Gold Coast to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. If it’s a challenge for Gurner – not to mention for Tarascio, Sinnathamby and other private and public developers – it’s a problem for the country. Despite the federal government’s efforts to reduce migration, demand is far outstripping supply, housing approval numbers are falling as well as. The government’s target of 1.2 million new homes over the next five years is sliding further out of reach.
“We are cautious in the next six to 12 months. We still think there is more hurt coming for the market and that provides more opportunity for us to do more acquisitions, which we are excited about. “It’s just that the market dynamics – that includes what people are able to pay, cost of delivery and tax settings – are not conducive to us getting into that part of the market at the moment. We will get back into it as soon as we can see that the conditions support it.”
Further north, in Queensland, 84-year-old Maha Sinnathamby, 76th on this year’s list at $1.952 billion,. He is the master developer, along with Bob Sharpless, of one of the country’s most ambitious real estate plays: an entire master-planned city, Greater Springfield, which is east of Brisbane.