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Welcome back to The Dirt, Australia’s go-to news brief for the drama, deals, and decisions shaping Australia's built world.

Today’s brief:

🤝 CBRE bags Burgess Rawson
📜 BNPL faces fresh rules as Aussie wallets tighten
🏥 Bankstown Hospital build hits $2B milestone

Here’s what’s moving 👇

🏗 Project Pulse

Gurner’s Next Luxe Play: Highgrove Place in Prahran
Gurner is back in boutique mode with Highgrove Place, a 14-apartment luxury stack in Prahran built around a 130-year-old gothic church hall. The penthouse will fetch $7.9 million with skyline views. The project taps Melbourne’s hunger for lifestyle living as downsizers and right-sizers ditch suburban sprawl. Rooftop plunge pools and ground-floor retail complete the pitch with construction kicking off this quarter: The Urban Developer

Bondi Bling: Central Element’s $150m Pearl Gets the Green Light
Central Element just won court sign-off for Pearl Bondi, a $150 million ultra-luxury project perched above the cliffs. Seven homes, $20 million plus price tags, views to eternity. The redesign trimmed heights, hid rooftop gear, and added enough greenery to keep the neighbours happy. Shovels hit the ground late 2025 with a second Bondi site already in the works: The Urban Developer

🚧 Pipeline Watch

Alice Springs Townhouse Play Rebooted as Rents Stay Hot
In Alice Springs, Asbuild is dusting off plans for 30 luxe townhouses at 19 South Terrace after approvals lapsed. The rental market is running hot even as house prices cool, making it prime time for a premium pitch. Across the Todd River, Melanka just secured approval for a $100 million, 144-unit project on a former nightclub site with half the apartments headed to government stock. The Red Centre is warming up: The Urban Developer

Potts Point Luxury Project Heads Back to Court With Sweetener
Developer ERD 1 is back at it in Potts Point, appealing council’s knockback of its $36.5 million Victoria Street apartment project. The original eight-storey scheme was rejected for ignoring affordable housing requirements; the new plans now include seven affordable units across 586 sqm. The revised DA is under review at the Land and Environment Court with design tweaks from Koichi Takada Architects to soften height and character concerns. Potts Point remains a legal minefield for developers, with multiple court battles playing out as density clashes with heritage and affordability mandates: The Urban Developer

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🤝 Deal Flow

CapitaLand Eyes $20b Australia Growth Target
Singapore’s CapitaLand is going big, aiming to more than double its Australian funds under management to crack $20 billion. Its latest move, buying non-bank lender Wingate and its $2 billion loan book, opens new lanes to private credit and high-net-worth capital. Now led by ex-Credit Suisse and ex-Barrenjoey dealmakers, CapitaLand is targeting everything from self-storage to BTR to healthcare real estate. The group is cashed up, acquisition hungry, and ready to pounce on local platforms: AFR

CBRE Bags Burgess Rawson in Private Capital Play
CBRE is snapping up Burgess Rawson, one of Australia’s go-to brokers for high-net-worth property deals. The move gives CBRE a bigger bite of the $35 million-and-under market where family offices and private investors hunt for childcare centres, fast food sites, and fuel stations. Burgess Rawson boss Ingrid Filmer will run point on the merged team. Game on in the country’s most fragmented and fiercely contested slice of the capital stack: AFR

Middle East Money Moves on Childcare Real Estate
A $9.2 million Avondale Heights childcare centre just landed in the hands of a Middle Eastern investor, part of a growing offshore tilt into the sector. CBRE says the capital flow is shifting fast, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi buyers now muscling in where Asian money once dominated. The 20-year-leased centre brings CBRE’s 2025 childcare tally to nine premium sales across three states. Childcare remains a magnet for private capital chasing stable income in choppy markets: Commo.

💰 Money Moves

Private Credit’s Favourite Borrower? Themselves
Australia’s top private credit funds have found a juicy new borrower: their own balance sheets. Big players like Metrics and Qualitas have quietly tapped millions in low-cost loans from their own trusts, sparking questions about where investor money is really flowing. Managers say it is arms-length and efficient, critics call it a conflict dressed in disclosure. ASIC is now kicking the tyres, as private credit’s rapid rise starts to show a few wobbles under the hood: AFR

📜 Policy & Pressure

Bankstown Hospital Build Hits $2 Billion Milestone
The NSW Government is tipping an extra $700 million into the new Bankstown Hospital, blowing out the project’s total to a record $2 billion. It marks the largest capital works investment in a public hospital in state history. The new facility will rise on Chapel Road after TAFE NSW relocates, with construction slated for 2026. The existing Bankstown-Lidcombe site will stay active and integrate with the new hospital to expand community and acute care: Daily Telegraph

BNPL Finally Gets Regulated
“Buy Now Pay Later” is officially credit in Australia from today, with new rules forcing providers to hold a licence, cap fees, and run basic credit checks. Less free-flowing BNPL means consumers will spend smarter, but leaner wallets are bad news for retail landlords banking on high per-head spend. Meanwhile, private credit funds are under fresh ASIC scrutiny, which could tighten the spigot for developers reliant on fast, flexible debt. Smarter credit markets are coming — but don’t expect a smooth ride. Source: AFR

NSW Puts Construction Site Culture Under the Microscope
The NSW Government’s Women in Construction industry survey is back for its third year, inviting on-site workers of all genders to spill on site culture. The aim is to track progress and pinpoint persistent cultural barriers as the state pushes for greater gender diversity in the building trades. Insights will feed future reforms under the Women in Construction Program. The survey is open now, and NSW is betting on data to drive change on the ground: Inside Construction

🔩 Build Intel

McNab’s Brisbane Port Build Sets New Sustainability Bar
McNab has scooped Queensland’s top sustainability award for its Electrolux Distribution and Experience Centre at the Port of Brisbane. The 21,000sqm facility pushes boundaries with mass timber structures, a 1.1MW solar system, water recycling, and low-carbon concrete throughout. It’s now a benchmark for sustainable industrial builds in Queensland and beyond. The project also signals how industrial landlords and tenants are lifting green performance ahead of Brisbane 2032: The Industrialist

AI Learns to Spot Contaminated Construction Wood
Researchers from Monash and CDU have trained AI to detect contaminated construction wood waste with 91 percent accuracy. The system can run on drones, handheld tools or sorting lines, helping divert more timber from landfill and into recycling streams. Wood is one of construction’s biggest waste problems, and contamination often blocks recovery. The move marks a practical win for scaling circular economy efforts in the sector: Inside Construction

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🇦🇺 Market Reads

Data Centre Debt Gets Creative
The AI arms race is fuelling a global data centre building spree and the debt markets are scrambling to keep up. With $170 billion in projects hungry for financing this year, lenders are stacking the capital pile with everything from structured credit to asset-backed tricks. Real estate banks and credit funds are starting to elbow into what has historically been the domain of pure infrastructure finance. The bigger these centres get, the weirder the funding gets — but in a world where cloud rules, everyone wants in: JLL

Private Money Heads to the Bush for Bigger Yields

Boutique syndicators are heading for the regions, chasing chunky yields where the big funds won’t play. Blackfox just snapped up a Shepparton retail centre at 8 percent yield with big-brand tenants in tow, while Haben and Fawkner are doubling down on major regional malls. Strong income, strong IRR targets — but vacancy risk in the regions is no joke if things turn south. Still, for yield-hungry private money, the bush looks better than the bruised metro retail scene right now: AFR

🌍 Far From Home

UK PM Pushes AI Into Planning Game
UK prime minister Keir Starmer is rolling out a new AI tool that promises to help planning officers convert old documents and maps into usable data in minutes. The tech will be deployed across all English councils within a year as part of a broader push to modernise the country’s glacial planning system. One to watch as Aussie councils and state planners start eyeing similar AI plays: Planning Resource UK

Dubai Doubles Down on Tokenized Property Push
Dubai’s second tokenized property listing hits the market this week as the city races to lead global blockchain real estate. PRYPCO Mint’s new one-bed listing follows its first sell-out launch, which drew 224 investors from 40 nations in 24 hours. Backed by the Dubai Land Department and VARA, the platform is giving retail investors fractional ownership from as little as AED2,000. With international access set to open next, Dubai is building serious first-mover advantage in digital property markets: Economy Middle East

That’s a wrap for today.
If you made it this far, you’re already ahead.

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— Team DIRT

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