NHFIC provides $400m for Vic social housing

The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) has announced that it has provided funding for around $400 million in loans and grants to deliver more social and affordable housing across Melbourne.

The funding is part of a Building Communities consortium from the not-for-profit, public, private and industry sectors.

The consortium – led by Community Housing Limited and investor and manager of infrastructure and structured projects, Tetris Capital – has been announced as the preferred bidder for three metropolitan Melbourne housing projects to be delivered under a ground lease structure on vacant Homes Victoria land in Brighton, Flemington and Prahran, according to the NHFIC.

It said that this would form its largest transaction to date and will include around $51 million of financing from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility (NHIF).

The NHFIC said that with its support, the project (worth around $500 million) will deliver, operate and maintain at least 1,100 new homes including social, affordable, specialist disability accommodation, private rental dwellings.

The NHIF funding would provide infrastructure such as roads, water and power, along with remediation works for the sites, it added.

It also said that in total, the NHFIC loan and grant is expected to provide CHL with more than $50 million in savings over the life of the project.

The NHFIC said that with this deal, it has committed more than $810 million for social and affordable housing in Victoria since the corporation was established in 2018, including $720 million through the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator (AHBA) and over $90 million through the NHIF.

Commenting on the agreement, NHFIC CEO Nathan Dal Bon said that it is an example of how federal and state governments could collaborate with not-for-profit, private and community housing sectors to provide social and affordable housing.

He said: “Community housing providers taking on a project of this scale and complexity will position them to reinvest in additional new housing supply.”

CHL managing director Steve Bevington also spoke about the agreement, stating: “We have had a successful partnership with NHFIC since its inception.

“This funding in particular is game-changing, enabling CHL to accelerate the delivery of large-scale new social and affordable housing for hundreds of Victorians in a model that is replicable for the renewal of public housing nationally.”     

Tetris Capital principal Ryan Slocombe said: “This is the biggest project of its kind and it simply wouldn’t have been possible without the backing and expertise of NHFIC.”

The NHFIC finalised a $562 million social bond issue last year, which it said would support 10 community housing providers across NSW, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, and finance over 2,700 properties, including 775 dwellings.

[Related: New community housing program launched]