News

November 16, 2017 | IN Media Release and News | BY Holly Brennan | 3 min read

AVID Property Group is primed for a push into the apartment market, with the appointment of a National Acquisitions Manager.

Former Crown Group National Business Development Director, Spiro Prevezanos joins the well-established development company with a clear goal – to triple the company’s value over the next five years.

AVID has a national and diversified asset approach, covering residential land subdivisions, medium density residential, housing solutions, and industrial development.

Mr Prevezanos said AVID has the financial credentials to energetically pursue a growth and diversification strategy.

“The objective is to build a more balanced residential platform by increasing diversity and this will include a focus on apartment development opportunities, while continuing to feed the current residential communities pipeline,” Mr Prevezanos said.

It will be a return to the apartment development sector for AVID, which has delivered a solid portfolio in the residential market across the east coast over the last 10 years, including its time under the Investa brand.

Mr Prevezanos brings acquisitions experience in the Sydney market, where he also worked for Stockland and was responsible for acquisitions for the state’s residential development business, including its two current land holdings in Sydney’s North West and South West growth corridors.

He sees major challenges to development in Sydney being offset by opportunities.

“Development outcomes and assessment of planning risk is always a big challenge, but Sydney is still underpinned by a robust economy and pockets of shortage in supply,” he said.

“The AVID team has the mix of skills and experience to develop deal structures with appropriate price risk that will enable us to value add to opportunities presented by this type of environment.

“Melbourne and Brisbane present different challenges, predominately in the areas of supply risks and product offerings in committed projects. For the most part, these are location-specific matters, which may impact activity over the short term.

“However, a disciplined site selection process focused on demand fundamentals for sites with high amenity will be employed to activate opportunities.

“Additionally, we are pursuing partnering opportunities with land owners and developers where we can leverage our strong balance sheet to unlock opportunities.”

Mr Prevezanos said infrastructure corridors would continue to play a critical role in mitigating market risk and opportunities.

“In Sydney, government efforts over recent years to activate infrastructure projects have been a key enabler for recent development activity and will achieve positive outcomes for the city after the under-investment of the previous decade,” Mr Prevezanos said.

“However, more work is required in speeding up the approval process particularly for code-based development applications to enable the property industry to provide much-needed supply of housing accommodation as experienced in other jurisdictions around the country.”

He said AVID’s growth plans would continue to be framed by the company’s commitment to deliver quality residential products that responded to market demand.