Aware Real Estate Snaps Up Canberra BtR Property

Property investment platform Aware Real Estate has paid $157.5 million for an ACT build-to-rent project.

It has aquired Dickson Village from Canberra developer Tony Pan of TP Dynamics.

Aware Real Estate is a platform for Aware Super and real estate partner Barings, who bought out Altis Property Partners in late 2022.

Dickson Village is a mixed-use development that reached practical completion last month. The site is in the inner-city suburb of Dickson just 4km north of the Canberra CBD.

It has a neighbourhood retail centre with a Coles supermarket as an anchor tenant on the ground floor and 140 build-to-rent apartments above in the six-storey building. 

The supermarket shares the ground floor with Liquorland on a new lease for 12 years and 10 other foods and service-based speciality shops. 

Car parking for residents is on the first floor.  

The sale price reflects a 6 per cent fully leased forecast yield for the apartments and neighbourhood retail centre. 

▲ A render of the design for Dickson Village by TP Dynamics prior to construction.

Other completed, approved and under construction medium and high-density residential developments surround the site, which has good public transport links—it is400m from the Dickson Interchange for light rail and buses.

That infrastructure was important to Aware Real Estate’s decision to buy the site, according to chief executive Michelle McNally.

“This opportunity exemplifies Aware Real Estate’s focused investment strategy to target locations around existing and new infrastructure that we believe drive long-term demand and underpin capital growth,” she said.

“With a real estate portfolio of around $2 billion, we are excited to further expand into the Canberra market with Dickson Village.”

CBRE national retail director James Douglas, ACT managing director Nic Purdue and associate director Tristan Cotchett managed the sale. 

“High-quality assets like Dickson Village are rarely traded in the very tightly held Canberra market,” Purdue said.

“The project’s completion is well timed to capitalise on strong rental growth in the Canberra residential sector, underpinned by the low level of vacancy and increased demand from the private and health sectors, as well as the student market.”

This is not the first move into build-to-rent by Aware Real Estate—it recently acquired Crown Group’s Mastery project in Waterloo for $121 million.