Villa World's Melbourne Footprint Grows $44 Million Larger

Residential property developer Villa World has expanded its footprint in the Victorian housing market with $44 million in land acquisitions in Melbourne's north-west growth corridor.

The Company will continue to target first home buyers and owner-occupiers in the affordable to mid-price range as its core customers.

The latest acquisitions include two sites totalling 32.9 hectare at Plumpton, 30 kilometres north-west of Melbourne's CBD and 12 kilometres south west from the airport.

The sites are part of two Precinct Structure Plans for the Plumpton region, both expected to be gazetted later in 2017, and will yield in excess of 500 lots.

The north-west growth corridor has already drawn strong demand for Villa World with its Sienna project sold out, and it land only Sienna Rise project outstripping forecasts.

Villa World Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Craig Treasure said the latest acquisition was in line with the Company′s objective to grow its holdings in Victoria to match that of its Queensland holdings.

“Villa World has signalled that we are moving towards a 20/40/40 split which reflects the strength in the markets in Victoria and Queensland and our re-entry into the New South Wales market,” Mr Treasure said.

In March, Villa World successfully executed an $80 million capital raising to continue its five to six-year land restocking program.

“Our growing pipeline supports our target of continuing to achieve cumulative average earnings per share (EPS) growth of greater than 10% p.a.,” Mr Treasure said.

He said the new Melbourne projects would feature a mixture of house and land product, as well as vacant home sites.

Settlement of the sites will occur in July 2017 and July 2019, with the projects expected to commence contributing to the Company's profit in FY19.