Ingenia Communities’ Head of Development Von Slater: land lease design delivers capital gains for residents

The 550-people at the sold-out LEADERS SUMMIT 2023 at the Hyatt Regency, Sydney, were captivated by the success of Ingenia Communities’ land lease model. Von Slater, Ingenia’s Head of Development, said the investment in home design was generating escalation in pricing.

“We're seeing incredible capital gains across our communities, particularly in the last two years. In fact, we've got residents moving internally, you know, selling homes for capital gain. “There's opportunity in that our first release of homes is generally cheaper when the project is new and residents are starting to kind of ride that wave and get some really good capital gains, which is fantastic.”

Buyers into an Ingenia Gardens resort get a 99-year lease on their home.

“You pay us a fee to live there every week; on average, our site fees are around $200 a week. That fee covers the site lease in terms of the access to the land, and it also covers the use of our overall facilities. Our homeowners don't pay rates. They don't have a large home and garden to maintain. We do all the external maintenance,” said Von. “Generally for our customer, it's very comparable from a cost of living to living in their own home. When our residents decide to move out of our community, they can sell their home. They can choose to sell it through Ingenia, which most people do, given that we have a database, and they can sell through a traditional real estate agent. There's no DMF model within.”