CFMG Capital Seals $32m Queensland Aggregation

Brisbane-based developer and fund manager CFMG Capital has moved on four development sites in Brisbane’s northern growth corridor and is now readying a $250-million project for launch in 2024.

The four greenfield sites on Bellmere and Stern roads, Bellmere cover a combined 69ha of contiguous prime development land 4km west of Caboolture and with access to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast via the M1.

CFMG, headed by Scott Watson, is a developer of residential estates in Victoria and Queensland funded through its funds management arm.

It operates a residential communities development core division which has a pipeline of more than 2000-plus lots and has raised $180 million in third-party equity.

The developer is currently finalising development plans for the site but expects the project to yield about 750-lots over the coming years with a gross realisation of more than $250 million. 

CFMG Capital general manager Andrew Thomson said the unnamed projects would help alleviate the ongoing land shortage in the area with the first stage of 60 homesites to be released in mid-2024.

“CFMG has been working on the acquisitions for more than two years and were confident the forthcoming project will meet with high demand once launched,” Thomson said.

“Our active projects in the same corridor at Burpengary, Morayfield and Caboolture have been very successful and exceeded our expectations in terms of the prices achieved, so we would hope to replicate that success at Bellmere.”

Thomson said continued strong population growth and increased affordability, compared to the southern markets, but that buyers were looking to the market and preparing to respond once the current cycle of interest rates was over.

“Buyers, particularly first home buyers, are just in a bit of a wait-and-see phase at the moment, but we expect them to return with gusto by 2024,” he said.

So far this year CFMG has launched new projects at a 3.1 ha site in Caboolture, dubbed Pumicestone Pocket; its Farriers Creek project at Burpengary, Arbourwood at Morayfield and Birchwood at Park Ridge.

The sites at Park Ridge, Caboolture and Rochedale are expected to yield more than 320 lots. The development in Morayfield has 208 lots while its other project in Burpengary launched in August.

That 60-lot project, Pumicestone Pocket, came close to selling out within the first two weeks of its release and achieved $12.8 million in sales. It comprises lots ranging in size from 300 to 510 square metres. Farriers Creek has achieved upwards of $8 million in sales since launching in early 2022.

Meanwhile, in Victoria, CFMG has two greenfield estates—The Millstone at Melton South, and Acacia Village at Wollert.

Greenfield housing land values in south-east Queensland have doubled in some cases in the past two years as unprecedented numbers of southern developers target the fast-growing region.

Low supply has continued to be met with high demand with many agents and developers receiving twice the number of buyers bidding for fewer major land parcels in Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast development corridors.

Regional house prices are rising sharply, pushed by heightened interstate migration into Queensland, prompting a fresh cohort of southern and interstate developers such as ID_Land, Wel.Co, Goldfields, HB Land, Fiveight and Villawood Properties to buy up big.

Stockland, the country’s largest diversified developer, put down plans for a $390-million residential development across a 175ha site at Litherland Road in Upper Caboolture earlier this year.