[+] Frasers Bullish on Future of Homes: Cameron Leggatt

They’ve been responsible for the injection of close to 150,000 homes and at a time when we need housing supply more than ever, Frasers Property Australia boss Cameron Leggatt is circumspect about the slings and arrows of property cycles. “I think the constant theme is there’s always change. You get years where you think ‘things are great’ but there’s always turbulence, the push and pull of the market and dynamics that are playing out,” the Frasers Property Australia chief executive says. The Urban Developer sat down with the man fronting one of the nation’s oldest home builders as it celebrates 100 years in business. And it came from small beginnings. TM Burke incorporated his real estate business in 1924 in the interwar period and reportedly had a knack for marketing. He would often extol the virtues of living near mass transit and open space, values that still typify greenfield developments to this day, and blocks of land were selling for £100 to £200. ▲ TM Burke was active right across Australia and rode the wave of the interwar period demand for housing. The business has been reshaped and reworked over the years, rebranding to Hooker Corporation in the 1950s, and Australian Housing and Land in the 1980s, which ultimately became Australand before it was bought in 2014 by global property brand Frasers Property. Leggatt says that after 100 years in business, it is back to being a family-owned business following Chang beer baron Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi acquiring Australand for the Frasers Property brand. And while it has gone through many brands and iterations from its humble beginnings as TM Burke, Leggatt says Frasers has held fast to its values. “You’re always dealing with something, and I think the nice thing has been that it’s gone through a few brands, it’s been able to keep its form and it still creates residential communities and does develop them to this day, which was its origin,” he says. “We’ve built about 145,000 houses in Australia, it’s a pretty good effort.” Padding out the pipeline It’s about 1.3 per cent of the nation’s total housing stock, with a significant amount in the pipeline across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, including the 3000-apartment Midtown at Macquarie Park in Sydney. That venture between Frasers Property Australia, state and federal governments and Mission Australia Housing will provide 1000 social homes as part of the mix, as well as affordable and market rate housing. Leggatt says Frasers is stepping into the affordable and social housing space. “We’ve got a long history of doing government deals that involve social and affordable housing. It’s just something the company feels aligns really well with its values,” he says. “Anytime we see something with affordable and social housing we take a good look at it. We think it’s an important mix that needs to be delivered in the context of housing affordability. “We’re doing a development in NSW that’s 3000 apartments and 1000 of them will be social. It’s a big project and we’ve delivered the first few stages which are a mix of market, affordable and social living in the same environment, which to date has been going really well.” ▲ The Midtown development at Macquarie Park is part of a venture to create 3000 apartments, a third of which will be social housing. Leggatt ascended the throne at a challenging time—the multi-national company reported a loss of $85.5 million for the 2023 financial year, the unprecedented pandemic boom in greenfield developments came off the boil, and construction costs have seriously challenged the feasibility of projects, particularly in Leggatt’s home state of Queensland. “Right now for us construction costs are really topical,” he says. “The days of just signing up a builder and off you go are probably gone. You really do have to take a partnership approach in the current market.” Build-to-rent and challenge of multi-residential Construction is under way on Frasers’ first foray into build-to-rent, in partnership with the Queensland Government, which will comprise affordable housing. Leggatt says the build-to-rent project, Brunswick &amp; Co, is being treated as a test case and that productivity and other construction challenges have pushed out timeframes for completion . Leggatt says the company will make a decision in the next six months as to whether it will tool up and create an operational platform or look for a whitelabel operator for the asset. The developer’s plans for apartments at Chester Street at Fortitude Valley , however, have been put on the backburner, according to Leggatt. “We’re still working on it, we think it’s a great site. We got the development approval, we’re definitely keen to progress it, it’s just making sure we can get this to work,” he says. ▲ Amenities at Brunswick &amp; Co include a rooftop pool and dog park, resident library, cinema and soundproof room for karaoke or podcasts. “We got the DA at a point when construction costs were just escalating, it felt like they were going up every day. So we just decided, let’s just slow down on it, make sure we understand all the numbers before we push go. “Finding the right builder, you’ve got to have a partnership approach. We are working with someone on it at the moment.” But outside of the severely challenged multi-residential market, the developer is making hay while the sun shines. ‘Scorched earth’ renewal project Its quarry redevelopment at Keperra in Brisbane, while technically challenging, is testing the waters for high-end amenity in community developments. Often described as some of the most expensive pools in Brisbane, the Keperra Quarry regeneration project is one that is renewing what Leggatt describes as “scorched earth”. “That whole site is really expensive to build, there’s lots of moving of rock, and retaining and engineering. We’ve got a lot of experts on that site, nothing has been easy,” he says. “We did some stairs ... and it was about connecting the top part of the community so they can walk down and transition into the retail. Those stairs were over $1 million, and they look great, and people will use them every day, but everything has an expensive touch to it. ▲ A render of The Quarry’s resort-style ClubQ amenities at Keperra. “There’s a lot of great residential amenity going into apartment buildings and we saw this as an opportunity to create a community that’s got not only land, and a bit of townhousing, and at the centrepiece there’s this amazing community facility. “With a project like that you do have to have those early adopters who have a bit of vision and hopefully they get the rewards from that.” But high-end amenities are less commonplace in the traditional broadacre developments in the more affordable belts, Leggatt says. “ Amenity is starting to transition from high-end apartments into that urban space … it’s even about just what people want in terms of parks and walkways and connectivity,” he says. “The old days of racking and stacking, that’s gone if you want a really good community and to get the most out of it. But the biggest thing you’ve got to challenge is the body corporate, for developments like the Quarry it works, but for areas like Ipswich it’s not as viable. “We’re spending a lot of time on how we can deliver amenity without expecting people to cut a cheque every quarter. That’s a friction point for that kind of demographic. What we’ve really leaned into in those broadacre developments is amenity that they don’t have to pay for.” The next 100 years Leggatt says that even though there are significant challenges in the current landscape Frasers remains a residential developer at its heart and continues to look for sites. A key indicator for the developer is infrastructure spending on hospitals, transport hubs and roads, because “they’re job creators and people will need housing”. “Australia needs housing, all forms of housing. It needs rental housing, it needs market housing, it needs social and affordable housing, and that’s where Frasers’ heritage is and it’s where we want to play,” he says. “We are quite bullish on the residential market in Australia in the medium to long term—we’ve just got to get through all the headwinds, the high interest rates, the construction, and work our way through it. “We are looking to acquire, last year we acquired [Windermere] off Country Garden west of Melbourne … we are still a little bit underweight in Victoria and Queensland, we would love another project in each. “It’s very competitive out there. If you buy one good site a year, you are probably doing pretty well.” Leggatt says they will launch the Windermere site at Mambourin in south-west Melbourne next month (September). “I’d love to think that in another 100 years there will be a CEO sitting here talking about all the great developments we’ve done … maybe we’ve delivered 290,000 houses by that stage,” he says. “I’d love to think that we’ve got a huge portfolio of those retail assets which we develop and hold, and that we’re still developing, and maybe we’re doing prefab. “Things will really change with the technology coming in. I think you will see a lot more technology coming on to construction sites. I do think it will be done differently, but people will still want to live somewhere that has good amenity and provides a lifestyle.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

[+] Frasers Bullish on Future of Homes: Cameron Leggatt

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