australia
York & George, Sydney
Construction at Barangaroo, Sydney
AUSTRALIA’S CONSTRUCTION KINGS Australia’s most prolific apartment builder is Australia’s sixth richest person, worth nearly $5bn. Harry Triguboff (below), the Russian founder and managing director of Meriton, is known as ‘High-Rise Harry” having built more than 60,000 apartments across Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast since launching the company in 1963. Triguboff, born in China, went to college in Sydney, before graduating from Leeds University in England with a degree in textile engineering. The 80-year-old became an Australian citizen in 1961 and before building his property empire operated a fleet of taxis and a milk run. Len Buckeridge is the founder and owner of the Buckeridge Group of Companies (BGC), one of Australia’s largest private companies and the country’s biggest housebuilder. BGC, based in Perth, Western Australia, is also heavily involved in mining. Alcock Brown-Neaves Group is Australia’s second largest builder. Dale Alcock and Garry Brown- Neaves, the founders, started out as apprentice bricklayers. The company has built more than 55,000 homes across Western Australia and Victoria.
Infinity, Brisbane
York & George, Sydney
state government argues that putting in the infrastructure to support new housing 30km or 40km out of the city costs too much. But build a new apartment building in the Central Business District (CBD) and the infrastructure is already there,” says veteran Melbourne estate agent Peter Righetti. Righetti has driven the project
marketing and sales of two very successful, large new residential resorts in the region. Sanctuary Lakes offers house and land packages at Point Cook near Melbourne, with the homes built around a Greg Norman- designed golf course. It is considered one of the premier residential communities in Australia and has a strong resale market too. Another of Righetti’s projects, Sandhurst, a country club-style residential community, is now established as one of Victoria’s most prized suburbs. Affordability forces first-time buyers
further and further out from the city if they are after that block of land for a home and a paddock that is so immersed in Australian culture, but a lack of job prospects in the outer suburbs and beyond can mean a long commute, or the search for a city apartment instead. “Australians prefer their feet on the ground,” says Righetti.
Just as central London is a market all of its own, so the CBDs of the likes of Sydney and Melbourne attract international investors, pushing up property prices. The Chinese are not only voracious
importers of Australia’s minerals, they are heavily investing in the country’s real estate too, especially at the top end of the Sydney market. No doubt there has been Chinese interest in the modestly named Elaine, the Victorian waterfront mansion at Sydney’s Double Bay, with the estate, owned by the Fairfax family, an Australian media dynasty, expected to fetch a harbour- watering $100m, which would make it the highest-priced Australian property on record. The estate is three times the size of Altona in nearby Point Piper, which sold last year to a Chinese investor for $53m, a new Sydney high. UK property software provider Reapit,
leading the way in the UK residential market, recently opened in Australia, where it is looking to work with agents and developers. “There are some cutting-edge
designs and projects in Australia at the moment. There is an affordability issue, with developers reducing land sizes to keep the overall price of a house and land package down,” says Peter Gaidzkar, CEO of Reapit Property Services (Australia) and
showhouse January 2014 | 59
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