Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Lifestyle Communities, LIC, half year results teleconference. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. James Kelly, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, welcome to the Lifestyle results call. It's interesting, next Friday week actually marks a really significant milestone for the business. 20 years ago to that day, [Daelbores] and I caught up at Giorgio's Cafe in Malvern. Recognizing a real gap in the market, we spent a couple of hours developing a concept for affordable downsized communities for the average Victorian. We also did this with a mandate to ensure that whatever we did, it would be socially, morally, and ethically sustainable, and we've never resolved from this. Lifestyle Communities was born on the February 24th, 2003, and we have organically grown this business for two decades to where we are today. During this time, we've maintained an absolute laser-like focus on three things. Firstly, prioritizing our customers and homeowners.
We are driven to provide them with superior experience in the most amazing communities that we can envisage. Secondly, investing in our amazing team to show that we recruit the most customer-centric people who are passionate about our purpose and our wonderful customers and homeowners. Finally, an absolute fundamental viewpoint of ours has been on our shareholders, ensuring that we optimize returns through not raising equity and recycling capital, offering superior returns on the journey. We've never resolved from those also three laser-like focuses on what lifestyle is all about. We also intuitively knew this model was super robust and almost countercyclical. It could withstand whatever the property market threw at it. With our customers always selling to first-time buyers and the desire to downsize being a life ambition, we were sure that we would always have wind in our sails.
This has continually been franked up over the last 20 years and even more so today. What a year to mark this 20th anniversary with the launch of seven just extraordinary projects, all reimagined and retargeting emerging trends post-COVID. We've launched projects, our projects that would lead the Noreen, Phillip Island, St Leonards, and The Shores, and most recently, Riverfield in the Melbourne southeast. We'll also launch Pakenham East and Merrifield in the coming months. What really excites me most is the team has completely reimagined the facilities that we provide as we broaden our addressable market to now start to embrace the post-COVID settlement, as well as the emerging Gen X. In our newer communities, we're now seeing 20%-40% of our homeowners are still working and looking for different experience and facilities compared to what we had previously provided.
They have more time poor, and as a result, the gift of time has become as important as the freeing up of equity. A marketing experience strategy leans into this, which is driving stronger inquiries and leads. We've also reimagined our experience offering with the forthcoming launch of Club Lifestyle, our biggest customer experience initiative in 20 years. Club Lifestyle will provide our homeowners free access to villas, caravan sites, and motor homes located in the more sought-after destination communities around Victoria. The first to launch will be in April at Lifestyle Doreen, with 28 beautiful villas, 24 caravan sites, and two brand-new motor homes. Understandably, the response from our homeowners has been nothing short of fantastic and ultimately will lead to increased referral and market differentiation.
Before I pass to Darren, I just wanted to thank you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support over the last 20 years, for believing in us and walking beside us on this journey. Collectively, we've created a strong, resilient, visionary business that constantly reimagines and truly defines what a business for purpose is all about. I'm just so looking forward to seeing the next stage of our growth, the delivery of these next seven projects, and seeing all the ideas and thinking hit the ground over the coming next year and a bit. I'd now like to pass to Darren just to talk through the results in a bit more detail.
Thanks, James. Afternoon, everyone. It was interesting, I was reflecting on the results this morning with the team, and what sort of strikes me is that the results themselves don't really reflect the level of activity that's been going on in the business. As the sort of activity levels to launch new projects and get new product into market really front runs the financial results as the settlements play through in future years. It's definitely been a busy period, and certainly one that, yeah, it's been a pleasure to be involved in as we bring these new projects to market. On the results themselves, the settlements were impacted a little bit by project timing as we closed out all the communities at Mount Duneed and Kaduna Park, which had been in development for some years.
We put new communities into the market which haven't really started their settlement journey yet. A little bit of a transition period in that sense. Pleasingly, we saw the site rentals continue to increase due to an increased number of homes under management from the settlements last year, as well as really good cost control in the existing operations, particularly in, as everyone's no doubt aware, quite a high inflation environment at the moment. Also pleasing to see was really strong demand for resales, continuing to see our products turn over in a really quick time. No major change in our time on market for resale homes. We've also continued to see price growth in that established resale market, which has contributed to the stronger DMF revenue coming through.
That's really pleasing as we see our communities continue to create capital growth for our homeowners. On the balance sheet, quite a lot going on in the balance sheet as we launch these new projects. Early in the year, we renegotiated our debt facilities with our existing bank syndicate, so we increased that to AUD 525 million. That allows us to continue our buying cycle within our existing capital management framework. We've also settled a number of blocks of land that were in our pipeline. There was quite a heavy cash draw for that as we settled those contracts. No more material land contracts to settle in the second half. We've just got one more project to go in those settlements.
That should see the cash draw for land settlements slow down a little bit in the second half. We did see a big increase in activity levels as we launched, and we completed early works on civils and infrastructure, as well as ramping up the volume of house builds as we try and complete those houses to satisfy the pre-sales. That's resulted in an increase in our inventory levels, as well as an increase in our debt draw and gearing. All of our debt is project linked, so we recover the interest cost on that debt through the projects. We use forward interest rate assessments to do that.
As much as we are seeing an impact of the increased interest rates that are going on out there at the moment, we have been able to nurse those through our pricing models and build it into our forward sales prices. Whilst gearing is a little bit higher than at June 30, it's consistent with where we were this time last year and certainly not something that we're particularly concerned about. On the cash flow, obviously, in a capital recycling model like ours, the operating cash flow is heavily dependent on settlements. We have seen a lower cash flow in the first half, but that should move around a bit in the second half as those increased number of settlements come through.
Finally, I would like to thank our team for their efforts in launching these four new projects during the first half and the preemptive efforts on the three coming in the second half. We've spent a lot of time and effort over the last two or three years, in particular, building systems and processes, and putting in new IT systems, and retraining the team, and recruiting new people, all with this particular ramp up in mind of delivering new projects and ultimately higher settlement numbers. It's been a pleasure to watch that come to fruition in this first period, and I look forward to it continuing in the second half. Thanks, James .
Thanks, Darren. Just in terms of outlook, we're still seeing Melbourne as a sort of tale of two cities, and I've threatened to bring the tablecloth round again on the roadshow for anyone who hasn't seen it, just to show how property markets move, in terms of, you know, the city might come down 10% or 15% in these type of property movements. You see the outer 'burbs still, you know, in most of our catchments, they're either steady or actually slightly increasing. As Darren mentioned, we're seeing time on market for resales and our customers selling their own homes still to be, you know, 35, 40 days, which still talks about a very strong outer suburban market.
I think there's also a push into buying established housing as people are nervous about building new housing with what's happening with experience with builders. I think that's also assisting our customers selling their homes as well. We are still forecasting the range of 1,400-1,700 settlements. Obviously, you know, we're back-end weighted, the second half weighted this year as well. We're seeing again, our customers' ability to sell their homes still very, very positive. It's been an interesting start to the year or the calendar year. We had a really good surge in inquiry as I think we're leaning into customers' expectations or thinking around what's next and post-COVID.
I think also, this tap into, as I mentioned, people still working and being able to move into a Lifestyle Communities and enjoy everything that it brings. We'll be able to just get home, not have to do the garden, dump your bags at home, go to the gym, go for a swim, and not have to drive out the gate is really resonating with that market. That, for us, reopens up our addressable market in terms of bringing in the Gen X. Again, as I mentioned, we've changed a lot of clubhouse product around about how we're designing buildings, thinking about that.
The information we shared today shows a lot of those new designs, which are really, really exciting, and really pushing the boundaries in terms of these types of offers to the Gen X. Like Darren, I totally agree. We've onboard a whole lot of new people now for our new projects, and they're all the same caliber of what we've recruited for. We're incredibly conscious of who we recruit and the culture we recruit them to. We now have a team of 150 super passionate, totally customer and homeowner driven, who just do an amazing job with everything they do. I'd like to thank all of them as well for everything they do every day for Lifestyle. Finally, bring it on.
As our, as our video says, our story video says, "We're not done yet," and we're certainly not. We're looking at new land opportunities, some new thinking, new ideas of where to buy land as well, as well as our traditional catchments. Also constantly reimagining in terms of what lifestyle is about. That was always that same focus as 20 years ago of delivering amazing affordable housing for people, looking to downsize to a bigger life. With that being said, I'd like to now pass back to the operator and we're really happy to field some questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Michael Peet from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi James and Darren. Thanks for taking my questions. Just the first one on average equity release. Could you give us a sense of where that is? Any sign of that coming back a little bit in this environment?
No. Pretty consistent with where it was at the full year, Michael. We haven't seen any major change in that front, and we do still monitor it. For every customer that sells their home, we look up what they've sold it for and what they're buying with us. Yeah, no material change there in this period. Roughly.
I'm just trying to get.
Roughly 240
Okay.
AUD 250 is the average equity free up.
Thanks, Darren. Just on the selling prices up very strongly, 27% to AUD 650, including GST. Just give me a sense, how much of that sort of mix should we expect that sort of number as a go forward? Or was it sort of a particular benefit in terms of particular homes or communities you were selling out in that period?
Yeah, it's a good pickup. It's actually more to do with the mix of projects and the locations of where they're selling, particularly, the Bellarine project and Phillip Island, selling at a slightly higher price point, but equally the land price was slightly higher too. No change in our pricing philosophy or model. We're still selling at an average of 75%-80% of the median house price in the catchments. It just so happens that those catchments that we're moving into are slightly more expensive in this particular period.
Then just a final one for me. Just, can you comment on time to build homes? What's that running at at the moment? In the light of some of your competitors, I think it's blown out quite a bit. Just on build costs, what are you seeing there on homes and on civils, clubhouse, et cetera?
Yeah, it's all coming back, Michael, which is great. We've put our build pretty much back to where we were two years ago, two and a half years ago in terms of build times. We're allowing extension of time due to supply chain issues. We've now pulled that right back almost to zero now. There's a couple of cases where we're building bigger homes that we've still allowed a slightly longer time as we adjust to working out how long those homes actually take to build. In terms of pricing and costs, yeah, we're starting to see that absolutely level out. You know, there definitely is a downturn in demand now for new housing, and that's gonna start flowing through the supply chains.
Because obviously we're, you know, with all of our 10 projects, we're increasing our build volume. We're in a really good position for seeing competitive price taking. That puts us in a really good position for the next 12 or 13 months. Clubhouse costs, they're also leveled off as well, which is great.
Thanks, James. Thanks, Darren.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew MacFarlane from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for your time. Strongly evidence in terms of projects that have been released, just wondering what you're seeing coming through in terms of referrals, in terms of sales?
Yeah, it's a really good question, Andy. Referral is really strong. You know, your referral varies as you go through a project. You can sense that, you know, early days you have a lot of new customers, a lot of new faces, and then you start getting the referring customers probably more so when the project actually starts and something physically on the ground, and then referrals really kick when you actually open the clubhouse. Across the board, we're still around that sort of 50% mark on new projects and higher for established communities where we have resales.
Interestingly enough, Andy, we just actually appointed a referral lead within the business to actually refocus on referrals 'cause there's a lot of things we could do better in terms of the way we manage referrals. It's a really exciting role, a really exciting time to be doing it 'cause, you know, particularly with Salesforce coming in, our ability to actually do more around that space is a fantastic opportunity, so.
Easy. In terms of the team, you mentioned this before, you're up to 160 dislocation of your accounts. It looks like you've put a few new staff on. Just wondering, you know, what are these folks doing? Are they net new people or there a bit of churn during the period or, you know, what is the component?
They're all frontline, Andy. Yeah, they're not coming to the support office. They're going out to the front line in terms of project management teams, community management teams and sales teams. We have increased our marketing team slightly as well to take on the additional volume of projects. Yeah, but they're all sort of frontline project-related sort resources.
Very good. Just one last one from me, just in terms of new site buys, new site at Warragul. Just wondering on the, on the detail on the project. Just wondering, just from a developer, what's the fact pattern around the project and just wondering, I guess, what's in the pipeline for the rest of the year and really what you're seeing in terms of the market, and is there any dislocation, reggie wise, and do you think that could be an opportunity for you?
Good, really good question, Andy. There is, and this is a post-COVID trend. You know, Warragul now is almost a, you know, suburb of Melbourne. We did 1 community there, which is our second or third community, and that went extremely well. Resales from that are also extremely strong as well. The site we bought is on the other side of Warragul, absolutely beautiful site. Yeah, we've got the opportunity of doing another sort of tree change type offer. Also we'll slot in a bit of Club Lifestyle into that as well in terms of tree change villas as part of that offer as well. It has sort of broadened our thinking around what's possible with sites. That's certainly exciting the acquisition team.
Yeah, watch this space. The other thing we're seeing, Andy, is a little bit as the housing market slows, the land market will slow, and then or the new housing market, I should say, slow. That's gonna potentially free up some land. Yeah, we're having a couple of chats with a couple of developers at the moment who might be willing to offload, you know, 10 or so hectares just to bring some cash in earlier. I think that's gonna probably increase a little bit more this year, particularly as the banks tighten up as well.
You know, usually we do see some opportunities to grow this as well, and obviously we can settle pretty quickly and we've got a very, very good reputation in Melbourne around dealing with in terms of acquiring land, and we've got a very, very strong acquisition team. One of who's been with us for 16 years. Yeah, he's extremely well known, extremely highly regarded, and we're very good for doing deals. Yeah, watch this space for this year. I think there'll be some different locations than perhaps what we've done before.
Good. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Aaron Muller from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Hi, James. Hi, Dan.
Aaron.
Guys, just on settlements at Deanside and Melbourne North, they seem to have been probably a little bit softer than what sort of I expected. What's happening in that community or that corridor, do you think? You know, do you think you'll be able to reinvigorate sales and settlements there? Yeah, just interested in what's happening out there in particular.
It's still that same case, Aaron, where it's a new corridor for us. It's sort of, you know, still sort of, you know, getting our feet in under the table. You know, Deanside particularly has had major road issues in terms of accessibility and for customers to even find it over the last six months or the last three months particularly has been a minor miracle. The good news is, you know, we've started this year very strong. We'll, you know, finished in last year and start this year much more strongly in terms of sales. I think that we'll start to see that sort of turn around.
We kind of sort of know that we have to, you know, we've got to be spread around Melbourne and get into these corridors where there's massive population, but you know, where we haven't got a big footprint. We're actually doing a lot of work right now on our brand to, you know, also increase organic search as well. You know, getting our brand, you know, out there and about with doing a lot more billboard, you know, we're doing a lot more radio. That all seems to be having traction. Again, very, very strong inquiry month in January, which will result in sales at both those communities over the coming months as well. Yeah, nothing to worry about.
It's actually, they're all right on business case, but they're, you know, not shooting the lights out like some of the others. They all can't be the sort of Meridians and the St Leonards and the Cowes and all the rest of it. They're right on average in terms of what our, what our other precincts have done as well.
Yeah. Thanks, James. Just on Woodlea and Bellarine, you flag the expected commitment in the fourth quarter from a settlement point of view. How are they coming from a development point of view? Do you think settlements are gonna commence in April, or is it more towards the end of the quarter in June?
Yeah, they're all, just 'cause of their timing, they're all in it sort of later in the last quarter really of the half. On full year, I should say. Yeah, they're more sort of May, June settlements. Just really just timing ability to have done the civils and to get on site. Look, credit to the team, right? The team that started Woodlea, which is heavily rock by the way, and, you know, they've worked through the rain, the storm, the tempest and, you know, and we'll, you know, we started I think back in June, July and we'll have houses settling there, you know, 12 months later from start. Yeah, it speaks volumes to our delivery capacity.
It speaks volumes to our sort of our preferred contracts we use for civils and obviously to Todd Devine's ability to just turn stuff around, which he's so proficient at doing now. The relationship with us and Todd Devine, it's just never been stronger and his capacity to deliver has also never been stronger as well, particularly now he's got more homes to negotiate with suppliers and also, particularly with, you know, some of the volume builders starting to slow down, it's freeing up both supervisors and also trades for us as well. Yeah. So yeah, the construction business is actually in a really good space at the moment, and I think will continue to be so for quite a while.
All right. Thanks, James. That's all from me.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I was wondering if you could comment on the potential for net capital release in the second half. Darren, you mentioned on the call, no more material land settlements due. Does that imply that there should be a reduction in net debt over the course of the next six months?
No, not necessarily, Ben. It does depend a little bit on settlements, to be honest. I mean, that's always the big swinger for us. I guess the dynamics are, we've got settlements that bring cash in, and then we've got construction activity that is ramping up. Those two are sort of offsetting each other in a cash perspective at the moment. We're not expecting debt levels to reduce materially, but neither are we expecting them to increase materially by June 30. It will depend on where settlements ultimately get to, which can be a little bit outside of our control. Something we've definitely got our eye on, but, yeah, doing everything we can to get settlements in the door as always. Yeah, a little bit dependent on that.
Perhaps this is a question for James. I was wondering if you could, maybe just talk through those factors that might have contributed to lower sales rates in the last six months, just with reference to the second half of FY 2022 being particularly strong in pre-sales, pre-sales for this half also being a bit below, where they would appear to have been in the prior corresponding period. I'm just interested as to how much of that you think is a function of the broader market or whether that is also reflecting, you know, project-related timing issues.
I'll jump in on that one, Ben. It's actually largely down to the project timing issues more than any sort of major change in project sales rates at individual projects. I guess it links back to the Aaron prior question around the alert and dean side. We actually saw the sales rates for those two projects pick up a little bit in this period. We obviously had Phillip Island, Bellarine, Meridian doing quite well as well. In terms of sales rates, we didn't see a massive decline. It's just yeah, more driven by project phasing and the number of projects we have in the market at any given point in time. With the sort of two finishing, four launching, the four launching obviously launched at various months throughout the period.
Phillip Island, as an example, only launched in December, so we only had 1 month of sales there. Those things had a bigger impact on the sort of total sales number than any sort of market-driven activities.
You previously said that FY 2023 should be broadly in line from a settlement perspective with FY 2022. Assuming that is indeed correct, how confident are you of settling circa 260 lots in the second half? Just when you look at the profile for the remaining four months of the year and the swing factors. Just your thoughts, please, on the risk to settlement activity in the second half.
We're really comfortable, Ben. you know, the sales team is, you know, we kind of run a machine here a little bit in terms of, you know, we've got a fantastic sales team. They're backed up by what we call a settlements team. you know, they're focused on getting customers' homes to market and, you know, we've got a whole sort of approach and systems around that, how we do that. Then, you know, the other bigger risk is, you know, can we actually deliver the homes by June 30 for people to actually settle?
That's where obviously the long-term relationship with Todd kind of strengths my confidence and Darren's confidence to say, you know, we kind of know them so well, that, you know, we can pretty much preempt, you know, or got great certainty about what they can deliver by June 30. I mean, it's interesting at Meridian, we've got 155, 160 homes under construction on that site alone, which is an extraordinary thing to see. You know, and Todd Devine's geared up with a whole raft of supervisors and teams and blah, blah. We've geared up and, you know. Yeah, we've got pretty good sight of what's coming June 30. We're a bit short, but over, you know, it's not going to impact.
You know, again, we're very comfortable with our bigger number, 1,400, 1,700. Obviously those project launches, that's what's breaking that bigger number in a couple of years.
Should we be still expecting around AUD 400 for FY 2023?
Yeah. We've said we'll do something similar to FY 2022 plus or minus.
Terrific. Thank you.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Hudson from MST. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. A couple of quick questions, mostly for Darren. If you could just give us a sense on that rise in, I guess, development expenses and corporate overheads. Is that largely done now, or you see sort of a follow-through impact into the second half then?
I think development expenses are a little bit different to the cost of sales. We expense development expenses as incurred. Typically when we launch new projects, there's a lot of upfront work to do, you know, employing the sales team, getting the marketing team set up, and then getting all of the materials done and into the market and booking signage, et cetera. There is a, I guess a pretty reasonable cost per project that you launch. Clearly, we've launched four in one period, so we've sort of multiplied that by four this period, which we haven't really done before. That definitely has driven that increase.
We've got a similar sort of number of projects hitting the market in the second half, so I'm not expecting that we'll see major drop-offs in that line item in the second half. You know, we're continually marketing those new projects hard. I think with corporate overheads, there's a little bit that will stick, definitely. I mean, we're not immune to the inflation environment that's out there at the moment. We've also got, you know, the activity levels always front-run the settlement, so we do need to build the engine to deliver those numbers. We're not sort of a CPI-driven overhead business. We scale the business as we grow, so that will always continue to tick along. We don't have any major plans to onboard a huge number of additional people in the support office.
We are, you know, we are in the process of moving office. That will bring a bit more cost into the second half, and then we've got all those usual things playing through, like insurance costs and things like that. It will continue to tick along in that overhead space.
I guess in relation to that development expenses, what sort of percentage would be variable versus fixed?
I mean, ultimately, they're all kind of variable, but.
I guess, just to put it another way, that line item's gonna come down in 2024 as a.
No, I wouldn't expect it to be honest, 'cause we sort of have ramped up the number of projects in the market. There's an initial spend to get them into the market, and then there's a consistent spend that goes on while you're selling. The only way that that would come down really is once we close out those projects. Typically, in our world, we're then bringing in new ones behind it. It's a number that sort of, I guess, compounds over time, but in advance of settlements. Does that make sense?
Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Thanks. Just in terms of the future land settlements, can you give a sense of how much is being provided for in the balance sheet?
I can. I'm just trying to find the number off the top of my head, mate, to be honest. I think it's roughly AUD 65 million is the forward land settlement profile. That is disclosed in the accounts, by the way. I just can't quite recall the exact number off the top of my head, but I can point you to it afterwards. It is in the interim report.
Yeah. You're not expecting much, settlement outflows.
No. There's only one project still to settle in the second half, and then Warragul and Ocean Grove, both into FY 2024 before they settle.
Okay. Then just in terms of timing of settlements on Warragul, is it an FY 2026 timeframe?
It's a little bit of a moving feast. That contract is conditional on planning requirements, so it's a little bit hard to say because we've got to get the planning permit submission into council, those sorts of things. Yeah, we're saying circa two years is the expectation, but it could be a bit sooner, could be a bit later, depending on how that planning process goes. Also, that site's got to be serviced, we're also bitten the hands of the developer to get services to the front gate.
CS is construction commencement, and then it's generally, what, 12 months before settlement?
Correct. That's right. Yeah.
Okay. Yep. All right. Brilliant. That's all I have for now. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rushil Paiva from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Hi, James and Darren. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a quick couple from me. Just regarding your cash flow or your expectations for cash flow from operations, both in FY 2023 and FY 2024. Just wanted to check or get your thoughts on whether there's any change there. I think in the past, especially in FY 2024, you've talked to negative cash flow from operations just due to the heightened civil work that Lifestyle Communities will be undertaking. Just wanted to see if there's any change there. I do know it's obviously quite dependent on settlements in the period, but just wanted to get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, that's right, Rushil. Ultimately, we haven't had any change in our project timelines or our build timeframes or anything like that. There's nothing that would cause us to change our expectations on the timing of cash flow. You're dead right. The major swinger is really the timing of settlement. At this point, our expectations haven't changed, our expectations around cash flow haven't changed either.
Perfect. Thanks a lot for that. I just wanted to ask a quick question just regarding clubhouse construction, just to get an update of where that's currently at. I think Meridian, correct me if I'm wrong, is currently under construction. Just, you know, across the board, just an update on clubhouse construction.
Yeah, the one we have under construction at the moment is Meridian. That's due to open in April. The other ones are sort of in various stages of planning and development. You know, I know Pakenham East, Cowes, and Woodlea is the other one. Woodlea is also just under construction as we speak. Yeah, we always front those as early as possible in the development cycle because we also say to our homeowners, "You don't pay rent till we open the clubhouse." Yeah, we're incredibly incentivized to get those built and open as soon as possible. But they're all tracking. Well, when I say that, Meridian's slightly behind.
They had some major issues with a couple of contractors who sort of blew up
In the middle of last year actually, but they've been trying to catch up time, but they're gonna finish just a little bit later than what they had previously planned, so.
Perfect. Thanks a lot. That's all for me.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Tom Bodor from UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, James and Darren. Just one probably for Darren. Just around the interest rate swap. I think it's 2.6D in the accounts. Can you just talk to how that's going to change your average cost of debt? What percentage of your debt's fixed? Then maybe we can, depending on the rate, how you sort of, how much you need to increase prices of the house to recover that higher debt cost.
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, there's not a material change in the cost of debt, to be honest. What we're more focusing on is bringing a bit more certainty into the forward estimates. We flow all of our debt or the majority of our debt is into the project-linked debt. We recover all of our interest costs through the sales prices. What we're looking for by putting that in place is just to give us a lot of certainty in a fast-moving environment, so that we don't have to change our customer-facing pricing as often. It's more about delivering us certainty than it is about any material movement in cost of debt at this point. Obviously, if you.
When you say cost, presumably you're talking about P&L cost. Is that right?
Yeah. Ultimately, there's a bit of a lag for us because the interest gets capitalized into inventory and then released into cost of sales down the track. Yeah, no. Because we're using sort of forward estimates of the interest rates in our pricing models, it's really trying to marry that up and deliver a bit more certainty into those. You know, we're including forward interest estimates to three, four years out when we start a project. Trying to get a bit of certainty into that in a fast-moving environment is really the goal there.
Yeah, okay, that's clear. If you were to sort of talk about the actual where you lock that swap in, the sort of interest rate you locked it in at, could you just talk to that? Previously, you were all floating. We know what floating rates are, but could you just talk to the difference in the swap?
Yeah. I mean, it's very similar, to be honest, Tom Bodor. We haven't actually disclosed the rate because of commercial sensitivity. Ultimately, obviously, once interest rates started going up, the market moved very quickly. Now, as you would know, it's moved up and down over the last six months with various people's expectations. Yeah, the forward market has sort of settled down a bit now. We're sort of locked. We're happy where we are. We've priced that into our pricing models, and we're happy that that'll be recovered through the sales prices that we've set. That was really the main gain for us.
Did you pay any capital to get the swap at a more advantageous rate? Did you pay up for the swaps or were they just out of the money?
No, we didn't pay. They're out of the money.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Chad Mikhael, from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, James and Darren. Thanks for taking my call. Just a question, a broader question around the structural growth of the industry. It was quite interesting to see that, you know, with Mirvac's results out recently, that Woodlea had a section in there for, you know, future stages. I'm not sure whether that includes any Lifestyle Communities or not. I guess two questions. Firstly, are there any other, you know, relationships or JVs you could do with the likes of Mirvac? Secondly, just a broader question around, you know, the, I guess, the structural growth of the sector and what you're seeing out there in terms of demand.
Yeah, look, definitely. You know, of the 27 sites we've bought, we've only bought two on market. They've all been long-term strategic relationships with developers. Yeah, we did one with the Mirvac joint venture. You know, we're building that at the moment. Yeah, absolutely, there is other opportunities like that, and we've got a number of conversations proceeding as we speak. In terms of, you know, de-demand for traditional housing blocks, as Mirvac announced, that has fallen. You know, typically for us, that leads into potentially more conversations around developers selling global lots to the likes of groups like Lifestyle. Yeah. You know, we've got the balance sheet for it.
We're, yeah, all ears around what's gonna come out of the next probably six to 12 months as the market moves. Yeah. It's a good opportunity for us. It's an opportunistic time for us to pick up some sites.
Thanks, James. Just to follow up, just in terms of housing turnover, can you talk about any, you know, step changes in first homeowners, acquiring in and around your regions, given the changing or additional government funding providers, over the last year?
Yeah. Look, look, they've always been buying out our customers' homes, and I think that's why, Chad, you're seeing, you know, time on market for existing housing in the outer suburbs. You know, 30, 40 days, and that's been driven by these grants. We're also seeing a new one. It's an unexpected. I think our customers are getting a bit more well-heeled in some locations, but we're seeing a second home buyer entering into the established housing market. Traditionally, they wouldn't do that. They'd probably buy a new home, an aspirational home. I think the problem with new housing at the moment is, you know, the banks are struggling to put a value on the construction cost of a new home. You know, certainly raw land prices are at historic highs.
I think, you know, we've always said the first home buyer has been priced out of the new home market. Potentially, we're seeing some second home buyers being priced out as well and being pushed into the established housing market to buy a customer's home and then renovate. That's quite interesting that some of the I had quite a bit of feedback from the sales team around this saying, you know, we just don't see the second home buyer getting to market. That's all good news for our customers. That creates some price competition. I think, you know, we're talking, Darren and I were talking to our sales managers before, saying that, you know, house prices in Caroline Springs have gone up 8% in the last 12 months.
You know, you know, that's, and that's right next door to Deanside and Woodlea. Yeah, it's really, yeah, interesting times actually in that sense. But it's not. Yeah, we've got no concerns about our customers building fuel homes.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Kelly for closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for taking the interest and the time to get on this call. Looking forward to seeing many of you in the roadshow over the next five days. Thank you so much again.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.