19-05-2025
$1m 'caravans': luxury resorts for the rich spruiked as affordable housing
Property developers are using laws to promote affordable housing and caravan parks to build luxury over-50s resorts where homes can sell for $1.3 million - and owners are still charged site fees.
GemLife, one of a growing number of land lease companies in the burgeoning $12 billion sector, owns 14 resort-style manufactured housing estates in various stages of development at prime tourism and retirement hotspots across Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria.
In Tweed Heads on the NSW north coast, its 96-lot "Tweed Waters" development - complete with onsite grand ballroom, cinema, beauty salon, sauna and pool - was approved under laws designed to encourage affordable temporary accommodation and caravan parks.
One of its houses was listed for sale in mid May at $1.35 million in Tweed Heads, an area with the third-largest increase in rough sleepers among NSW councils in 2024.
Northern NSW, which has been ravaged by destructive floods twice in the past five years, also has the longest median wait time of anywhere in the state for government-subsidised housing - eight years.
The dearest "pre-loved" house for sale on GemLife's website was $1.55 million at "Pacific Paradise" on Queensland's Sunshine Coast where laws governing manufactured homes are less focused on affordability.
In land lease developments, owners buy the house structure but don't own the land beneath it and pay site fees like someone staying in a caravan park might do.
In 2023 GemLife said on its website ongoing site fees were a "modest" roughly $200 a week.
These charges were designed to cover land rent, security, and the upkeep of "communal facilities and gardens".
Land Lease Living, the NSW industry body, describes manufactured homes on estates as "an affordable housing option".
The purchase price "is generally far lower than traditional housing", it states on its website, which lists nearly 500 existing land lease "communities" along Australia's east coast from Yeppoon in Queensland to Eden on the NSW far south coast.
"Land lease living gives you the opportunity to live in a modern house in a highly desirable location at a fraction of the cost of traditional house/land options," the website reads.
Some land lease homes, which global real estate services firm CBRE says "could solve Australia's housing shortage" and now house about 130,000 retirees, can sell for over $2 million.
Other big players in the sector include Ingenia, Lifestyle Communities, Stockland and Hometown.
Manufactured homes in NSW are governed by the 2005 Local Government (Manufactured Home Estates, Caravan Parks, Camping Grounds and Moveable Dwellings) Regulation.
The regulation states: "The object of this regulation is to provide opportunities for affordable alternatives in short-term and long-term accommodation."
But these rules are under review by the state government to make green-lighting caravan parks and prefabricated homes even easier as Australia grapples with an ongoing cost of living and housing affordability crisis.
The consultation draft removes all reference to "affordable".
Under existing laws, manufactured homes have to be substantially built offsite and then transported in sections for final assembly, but land lease developers have successfully applied for exemptions to this requirement allowing them to construct houses on site.
Councils say the manufactured homes and caravan parks regulation in NSW is no longer fit for purpose and needs an "overhaul", likening estates to residential subdivisions without the same buffers, setbacks, construction standards and oversight.
"In 1995 they [the estates] were actual manufactured homes (built in factories, transported to sites), which were affordable," Tweed Shire Council said in its 2023 submission to the National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
"Advanced, modern, and efficient construction methods and techniques have enabled the manufactured home to resemble a standard dwelling house.
"The development industry is now using the regulation to deliver manufactured homes that are, in effect, houses at costs similar to house and land packages on freehold land."
The submission said these estates were now made up of slab-on-ground homes "disguised" as manufactured buildings.
"The very nature of a manufactured home is that it's supposed to be manufactured off site," Tweed mayor Chris Cherry said.
"The whole point of that legislation was to try and keep it affordable."
Housing developers were able to keep costs down with cheaper buildings sold as luxury living within an estate, the councillor said.
"They're exploiting a loophole in the affordable housing legislation that covers manufactured home estates," she said.
"You can build houses to a lower standard, they don't have to have the same setbacks from roads, they don't have to have the same infrastructure or setbacks [from] their neighbors that you would have to have under a normal residential subdivision - so they're cheaper to build.
"You can get more yield out of them."
Manufactured home developments also attracted lower council rates and fees because the entire estate was levied at one, cheaper commercial rate even though hundreds of people may live there, she said.
Tweed Shire could be collecting roughly 11 times the amount from an equivalent subdivided lot where each property owner paid rates - funds that could be used for local infrastructure and services.
Cr Cherry said local pensioners and long-term residents were effectively subsidising the resorts.
"It means that our local pensioners are paying for these other guys ... to do their development and to pay the ongoing cost for it," she said.
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) managing director Michael Fotheringham said the discrepancy between the intent of manufactured homes laws and how they were being used was clear.
"'Luxury resort' is not the phrase that they had in mind with this legislation when they were trying to create affordable supply," he said.
"There's a distinct contrast between the intent and how this is being exploited."
While the sector may be making it easier for wealthy retirees to downsize, it was not helping increase affordable housing supply, Dr Fotheringham said.
"Increasing profits for developers by cutting their costs and then still charging the wealthy clients a premium - it just wasn't what it's for," he said.
Local Government NSW, which represents councils across the state, is calling on the government to establish a dedicated regulatory agency for caravan parks and manufactured home estates, similar to the NSW Food Authority which oversees food quality.
What is now known as Tweed Waters on NSW northern border was originally given council approval for development as a 110-home manufactured home estate by Sheep Station Creek Pty Ltd in 2018. Sale records show GemLife bought the property from Mormatsal Investments for $825,000 in 2019.
A spokesman for the NSW planning department said it was working with the customer service department "to progress changes to rules for manufactured homes".
"The NSW government acknowledges manufactured homes play an important part in providing housing across the state and is working to improve planning pathways for this type of development," the spokesman said.
It had received a large volume of submissions to its review of the regulations, he said.
GemLife was contacted for comment.
Do you know more? Email the journalist:
Property developers are using laws to promote affordable housing and caravan parks to build luxury over-50s resorts where homes can sell for $1.3 million - and owners are still charged site fees.
GemLife, one of a growing number of land lease companies in the burgeoning $12 billion sector, owns 14 resort-style manufactured housing estates in various stages of development at prime tourism and retirement hotspots across Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria.
In Tweed Heads on the NSW north coast, its 96-lot "Tweed Waters" development - complete with onsite grand ballroom, cinema, beauty salon, sauna and pool - was approved under laws designed to encourage affordable temporary accommodation and caravan parks.
One of its houses was listed for sale in mid May at $1.35 million in Tweed Heads, an area with the third-largest increase in rough sleepers among NSW councils in 2024.
Northern NSW, which has been ravaged by destructive floods twice in the past five years, also has the longest median wait time of anywhere in the state for government-subsidised housing - eight years.
The dearest "pre-loved" house for sale on GemLife's website was $1.55 million at "Pacific Paradise" on Queensland's Sunshine Coast where laws governing manufactured homes are less focused on affordability.
In land lease developments, owners buy the house structure but don't own the land beneath it and pay site fees like someone staying in a caravan park might do.
In 2023 GemLife said on its website ongoing site fees were a "modest" roughly $200 a week.
These charges were designed to cover land rent, security, and the upkeep of "communal facilities and gardens".
Land Lease Living, the NSW industry body, describes manufactured homes on estates as "an affordable housing option".
The purchase price "is generally far lower than traditional housing", it states on its website, which lists nearly 500 existing land lease "communities" along Australia's east coast from Yeppoon in Queensland to Eden on the NSW far south coast.
"Land lease living gives you the opportunity to live in a modern house in a highly desirable location at a fraction of the cost of traditional house/land options," the website reads.
Some land lease homes, which global real estate services firm CBRE says "could solve Australia's housing shortage" and now house about 130,000 retirees, can sell for over $2 million.
Other big players in the sector include Ingenia, Lifestyle Communities, Stockland and Hometown.
Manufactured homes in NSW are governed by the 2005 Local Government (Manufactured Home Estates, Caravan Parks, Camping Grounds and Moveable Dwellings) Regulation.
The regulation states: "The object of this regulation is to provide opportunities for affordable alternatives in short-term and long-term accommodation."
But these rules are under review by the state government to make green-lighting caravan parks and prefabricated homes even easier as Australia grapples with an ongoing cost of living and housing affordability crisis.
The consultation draft removes all reference to "affordable".
Under existing laws, manufactured homes have to be substantially built offsite and then transported in sections for final assembly, but land lease developers have successfully applied for exemptions to this requirement allowing them to construct houses on site.
Councils say the manufactured homes and caravan parks regulation in NSW is no longer fit for purpose and needs an "overhaul", likening estates to residential subdivisions without the same buffers, setbacks, construction standards and oversight.
"In 1995 they [the estates] were actual manufactured homes (built in factories, transported to sites), which were affordable," Tweed Shire Council said in its 2023 submission to the National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
"Advanced, modern, and efficient construction methods and techniques have enabled the manufactured home to resemble a standard dwelling house.
"The development industry is now using the regulation to deliver manufactured homes that are, in effect, houses at costs similar to house and land packages on freehold land."
The submission said these estates were now made up of slab-on-ground homes "disguised" as manufactured buildings.
"The very nature of a manufactured home is that it's supposed to be manufactured off site," Tweed mayor Chris Cherry said.
"The whole point of that legislation was to try and keep it affordable."
Housing developers were able to keep costs down with cheaper buildings sold as luxury living within an estate, the councillor said.
"They're exploiting a loophole in the affordable housing legislation that covers manufactured home estates," she said.
"You can build houses to a lower standard, they don't have to have the same setbacks from roads, they don't have to have the same infrastructure or setbacks [from] their neighbors that you would have to have under a normal residential subdivision - so they're cheaper to build.
"You can get more yield out of them."
Manufactured home developments also attracted lower council rates and fees because the entire estate was levied at one, cheaper commercial rate even though hundreds of people may live there, she said.
Tweed Shire could be collecting roughly 11 times the amount from an equivalent subdivided lot where each property owner paid rates - funds that could be used for local infrastructure and services.
Cr Cherry said local pensioners and long-term residents were effectively subsidising the resorts.
"It means that our local pensioners are paying for these other guys ... to do their development and to pay the ongoing cost for it," she said.
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) managing director Michael Fotheringham said the discrepancy between the intent of manufactured homes laws and how they were being used was clear.
"'Luxury resort' is not the phrase that they had in mind with this legislation when they were trying to create affordable supply," he said.
"There's a distinct contrast between the intent and how this is being exploited."
While the sector may be making it easier for wealthy retirees to downsize, it was not helping increase affordable housing supply, Dr Fotheringham said.
"Increasing profits for developers by cutting their costs and then still charging the wealthy clients a premium - it just wasn't what it's for," he said.
Local Government NSW, which represents councils across the state, is calling on the government to establish a dedicated regulatory agency for caravan parks and manufactured home estates, similar to the NSW Food Authority which oversees food quality.
What is now known as Tweed Waters on NSW northern border was originally given council approval for development as a 110-home manufactured home estate by Sheep Station Creek Pty Ltd in 2018. Sale records show GemLife bought the property from Mormatsal Investments for $825,000 in 2019.
A spokesman for the NSW planning department said it was working with the customer service department "to progress changes to rules for manufactured homes".
"The NSW government acknowledges manufactured homes play an important part in providing housing across the state and is working to improve planning pathways for this type of development," the spokesman said.
It had received a large volume of submissions to its review of the regulations, he said.
GemLife was contacted for comment.
Do you know more? Email the journalist:
Property developers are using laws to promote affordable housing and caravan parks to build luxury over-50s resorts where homes can sell for $1.3 million - and owners are still charged site fees.
GemLife, one of a growing number of land lease companies in the burgeoning $12 billion sector, owns 14 resort-style manufactured housing estates in various stages of development at prime tourism and retirement hotspots across Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria.
In Tweed Heads on the NSW north coast, its 96-lot "Tweed Waters" development - complete with onsite grand ballroom, cinema, beauty salon, sauna and pool - was approved under laws designed to encourage affordable temporary accommodation and caravan parks.
One of its houses was listed for sale in mid May at $1.35 million in Tweed Heads, an area with the third-largest increase in rough sleepers among NSW councils in 2024.
Northern NSW, which has been ravaged by destructive floods twice in the past five years, also has the longest median wait time of anywhere in the state for government-subsidised housing - eight years.
The dearest "pre-loved" house for sale on GemLife's website was $1.55 million at "Pacific Paradise" on Queensland's Sunshine Coast where laws governing manufactured homes are less focused on affordability.
In land lease developments, owners buy the house structure but don't own the land beneath it and pay site fees like someone staying in a caravan park might do.
In 2023 GemLife said on its website ongoing site fees were a "modest" roughly $200 a week.
These charges were designed to cover land rent, security, and the upkeep of "communal facilities and gardens".
Land Lease Living, the NSW industry body, describes manufactured homes on estates as "an affordable housing option".
The purchase price "is generally far lower than traditional housing", it states on its website, which lists nearly 500 existing land lease "communities" along Australia's east coast from Yeppoon in Queensland to Eden on the NSW far south coast.
"Land lease living gives you the opportunity to live in a modern house in a highly desirable location at a fraction of the cost of traditional house/land options," the website reads.
Some land lease homes, which global real estate services firm CBRE says "could solve Australia's housing shortage" and now house about 130,000 retirees, can sell for over $2 million.
Other big players in the sector include Ingenia, Lifestyle Communities, Stockland and Hometown.
Manufactured homes in NSW are governed by the 2005 Local Government (Manufactured Home Estates, Caravan Parks, Camping Grounds and Moveable Dwellings) Regulation.
The regulation states: "The object of this regulation is to provide opportunities for affordable alternatives in short-term and long-term accommodation."
But these rules are under review by the state government to make green-lighting caravan parks and prefabricated homes even easier as Australia grapples with an ongoing cost of living and housing affordability crisis.
The consultation draft removes all reference to "affordable".
Under existing laws, manufactured homes have to be substantially built offsite and then transported in sections for final assembly, but land lease developers have successfully applied for exemptions to this requirement allowing them to construct houses on site.
Councils say the manufactured homes and caravan parks regulation in NSW is no longer fit for purpose and needs an "overhaul", likening estates to residential subdivisions without the same buffers, setbacks, construction standards and oversight.
"In 1995 they [the estates] were actual manufactured homes (built in factories, transported to sites), which were affordable," Tweed Shire Council said in its 2023 submission to the National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
"Advanced, modern, and efficient construction methods and techniques have enabled the manufactured home to resemble a standard dwelling house.
"The development industry is now using the regulation to deliver manufactured homes that are, in effect, houses at costs similar to house and land packages on freehold land."
The submission said these estates were now made up of slab-on-ground homes "disguised" as manufactured buildings.
"The very nature of a manufactured home is that it's supposed to be manufactured off site," Tweed mayor Chris Cherry said.
"The whole point of that legislation was to try and keep it affordable."
Housing developers were able to keep costs down with cheaper buildings sold as luxury living within an estate, the councillor said.
"They're exploiting a loophole in the affordable housing legislation that covers manufactured home estates," she said.
"You can build houses to a lower standard, they don't have to have the same setbacks from roads, they don't have to have the same infrastructure or setbacks [from] their neighbors that you would have to have under a normal residential subdivision - so they're cheaper to build.
"You can get more yield out of them."
Manufactured home developments also attracted lower council rates and fees because the entire estate was levied at one, cheaper commercial rate even though hundreds of people may live there, she said.
Tweed Shire could be collecting roughly 11 times the amount from an equivalent subdivided lot where each property owner paid rates - funds that could be used for local infrastructure and services.
Cr Cherry said local pensioners and long-term residents were effectively subsidising the resorts.
"It means that our local pensioners are paying for these other guys ... to do their development and to pay the ongoing cost for it," she said.
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) managing director Michael Fotheringham said the discrepancy between the intent of manufactured homes laws and how they were being used was clear.
"'Luxury resort' is not the phrase that they had in mind with this legislation when they were trying to create affordable supply," he said.
"There's a distinct contrast between the intent and how this is being exploited."
While the sector may be making it easier for wealthy retirees to downsize, it was not helping increase affordable housing supply, Dr Fotheringham said.
"Increasing profits for developers by cutting their costs and then still charging the wealthy clients a premium - it just wasn't what it's for," he said.
Local Government NSW, which represents councils across the state, is calling on the government to establish a dedicated regulatory agency for caravan parks and manufactured home estates, similar to the NSW Food Authority which oversees food quality.
What is now known as Tweed Waters on NSW northern border was originally given council approval for development as a 110-home manufactured home estate by Sheep Station Creek Pty Ltd in 2018. Sale records show GemLife bought the property from Mormatsal Investments for $825,000 in 2019.
A spokesman for the NSW planning department said it was working with the customer service department "to progress changes to rules for manufactured homes".
"The NSW government acknowledges manufactured homes play an important part in providing housing across the state and is working to improve planning pathways for this type of development," the spokesman said.
It had received a large volume of submissions to its review of the regulations, he said.
GemLife was contacted for comment.
Do you know more? Email the journalist:
Property developers are using laws to promote affordable housing and caravan parks to build luxury over-50s resorts where homes can sell for $1.3 million - and owners are still charged site fees.
GemLife, one of a growing number of land lease companies in the burgeoning $12 billion sector, owns 14 resort-style manufactured housing estates in various stages of development at prime tourism and retirement hotspots across Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria.
In Tweed Heads on the NSW north coast, its 96-lot "Tweed Waters" development - complete with onsite grand ballroom, cinema, beauty salon, sauna and pool - was approved under laws designed to encourage affordable temporary accommodation and caravan parks.
One of its houses was listed for sale in mid May at $1.35 million in Tweed Heads, an area with the third-largest increase in rough sleepers among NSW councils in 2024.
Northern NSW, which has been ravaged by destructive floods twice in the past five years, also has the longest median wait time of anywhere in the state for government-subsidised housing - eight years.
The dearest "pre-loved" house for sale on GemLife's website was $1.55 million at "Pacific Paradise" on Queensland's Sunshine Coast where laws governing manufactured homes are less focused on affordability.
In land lease developments, owners buy the house structure but don't own the land beneath it and pay site fees like someone staying in a caravan park might do.
In 2023 GemLife said on its website ongoing site fees were a "modest" roughly $200 a week.
These charges were designed to cover land rent, security, and the upkeep of "communal facilities and gardens".
Land Lease Living, the NSW industry body, describes manufactured homes on estates as "an affordable housing option".
The purchase price "is generally far lower than traditional housing", it states on its website, which lists nearly 500 existing land lease "communities" along Australia's east coast from Yeppoon in Queensland to Eden on the NSW far south coast.
"Land lease living gives you the opportunity to live in a modern house in a highly desirable location at a fraction of the cost of traditional house/land options," the website reads.
Some land lease homes, which global real estate services firm CBRE says "could solve Australia's housing shortage" and now house about 130,000 retirees, can sell for over $2 million.
Other big players in the sector include Ingenia, Lifestyle Communities, Stockland and Hometown.
Manufactured homes in NSW are governed by the 2005 Local Government (Manufactured Home Estates, Caravan Parks, Camping Grounds and Moveable Dwellings) Regulation.
The regulation states: "The object of this regulation is to provide opportunities for affordable alternatives in short-term and long-term accommodation."
But these rules are under review by the state government to make green-lighting caravan parks and prefabricated homes even easier as Australia grapples with an ongoing cost of living and housing affordability crisis.
The consultation draft removes all reference to "affordable".
Under existing laws, manufactured homes have to be substantially built offsite and then transported in sections for final assembly, but land lease developers have successfully applied for exemptions to this requirement allowing them to construct houses on site.
Councils say the manufactured homes and caravan parks regulation in NSW is no longer fit for purpose and needs an "overhaul", likening estates to residential subdivisions without the same buffers, setbacks, construction standards and oversight.
"In 1995 they [the estates] were actual manufactured homes (built in factories, transported to sites), which were affordable," Tweed Shire Council said in its 2023 submission to the National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
"Advanced, modern, and efficient construction methods and techniques have enabled the manufactured home to resemble a standard dwelling house.
"The development industry is now using the regulation to deliver manufactured homes that are, in effect, houses at costs similar to house and land packages on freehold land."
The submission said these estates were now made up of slab-on-ground homes "disguised" as manufactured buildings.
"The very nature of a manufactured home is that it's supposed to be manufactured off site," Tweed mayor Chris Cherry said.
"The whole point of that legislation was to try and keep it affordable."
Housing developers were able to keep costs down with cheaper buildings sold as luxury living within an estate, the councillor said.
"They're exploiting a loophole in the affordable housing legislation that covers manufactured home estates," she said.
"You can build houses to a lower standard, they don't have to have the same setbacks from roads, they don't have to have the same infrastructure or setbacks [from] their neighbors that you would have to have under a normal residential subdivision - so they're cheaper to build.
"You can get more yield out of them."
Manufactured home developments also attracted lower council rates and fees because the entire estate was levied at one, cheaper commercial rate even though hundreds of people may live there, she said.
Tweed Shire could be collecting roughly 11 times the amount from an equivalent subdivided lot where each property owner paid rates - funds that could be used for local infrastructure and services.
Cr Cherry said local pensioners and long-term residents were effectively subsidising the resorts.
"It means that our local pensioners are paying for these other guys ... to do their development and to pay the ongoing cost for it," she said.
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) managing director Michael Fotheringham said the discrepancy between the intent of manufactured homes laws and how they were being used was clear.
"'Luxury resort' is not the phrase that they had in mind with this legislation when they were trying to create affordable supply," he said.
"There's a distinct contrast between the intent and how this is being exploited."
While the sector may be making it easier for wealthy retirees to downsize, it was not helping increase affordable housing supply, Dr Fotheringham said.
"Increasing profits for developers by cutting their costs and then still charging the wealthy clients a premium - it just wasn't what it's for," he said.
Local Government NSW, which represents councils across the state, is calling on the government to establish a dedicated regulatory agency for caravan parks and manufactured home estates, similar to the NSW Food Authority which oversees food quality.
What is now known as Tweed Waters on NSW northern border was originally given council approval for development as a 110-home manufactured home estate by Sheep Station Creek Pty Ltd in 2018. Sale records show GemLife bought the property from Mormatsal Investments for $825,000 in 2019.
A spokesman for the NSW planning department said it was working with the customer service department "to progress changes to rules for manufactured homes".
"The NSW government acknowledges manufactured homes play an important part in providing housing across the state and is working to improve planning pathways for this type of development," the spokesman said.
It had received a large volume of submissions to its review of the regulations, he said.
GemLife was contacted for comment.
Do you know more? Email the journalist:
