SGCH secures $60 million CEFC housing loan

The community housing group SGCH has secured a $60 million loan from Australia's Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to upgrade the environmental credentials of its existing housing stock and build an additional 200 homes.

The first of the new dwellings will be built in the Sydney suburb of Peakhurst.

It the first time the CEFC has funded residential property, chief operating officer Meg McDonald said. The CEFC is keen to further investment in the residential property sector.

Last November, SGCH secured a $61 million, three-year facility with Westpac Bank to build 275 houses in the Sydney metropolitan area for low-income key workers in sectors such as childcare. 

The latest funding permits SGCH to build better-designed dwellings in Peakhurst that will cost up five per cent more upfront, but which would repay that within five years.