Weave Buys Sydney Project to Enter Australia, Plans $300M Venture

Less than two weeks after unveiling the company’s third project in Seoul, Weave Living announced its Australia debut on Thursday with the regional rental housing platform acquiring a Sydney project as a first step toward an anticipated $300 million fund.

Weave has chosen the inner-western suburb of Glebe for its first Aussie undertaking, betting on a city just north of the University of Sydney main campus as rental housing demand continues to grow in the New South Wales Capital.

“I’m immensely proud to share that Weave Living has made its foray into Australia with our debut acquisition in the chronically under-supplied inner-city rental housing market in Sydney,” Weave founder and CEO Sachin Doshi said in a post on LinkedIn. Doshi stated that the company, which is now in five major Asia Pacific markets, has “other strategic initiatives in Australia on the way.”

Set to yield approximately 80 units, the Sydney venture is the result of over 12 months of work by the Weave team, according to Doshi, who plans to launch the company’s first Australian living sector vehicle next year targetting $300 million in equity for a range of housing projects in the country. 

Developing a Seed Portfolio

Departing from the company’s typical approach of acquiring and repositioning existing hospitality or residential assets, Weave’s inaugural Aussie buy is a site opposite the Broadway Shopping Centre in Glebe, which has already received Development Application Approval for a new project. 

With the site located within 10 minutes of Sydney’s central business district by public transport, the Weave team aims to build and equip fully furnished studio apartments targetted at young professionals, young couples and students in the community, according to the statement.

In addition to its proximity to the University of Sydney, Weave’s project is within a kilometre (0.6 miles) of Central Station, offering transport connectivity to the Greater Sydney area. Weave anticipates the project having a value of around A$63 million ($41.1 million) once stabilised. 

“Glebe is a quintessential inner west Sydney suburb that has undergone significant gentrification but retaining an urban edge given its high concentration of university students attracted to its adjacency to several major campuses, including the University of Sydney and University of Technology Sydney, proximity to Central Station and the southern end of the CBD,” said Robert Papaleo, head of living for Colliers in Australia. 

Having secured its first project, Weave is in the process of acquiring a portfolio of assets to potentially seed its living sector vehicle, company representatives said. Known for its ties to major investors including Warburg Pincus and KKR, Weave is now building a team in Sydney as it prepares to open an office in the city during the fourth quarter.

With an initial focus on Sydney, Weave is pursuing development deals aimed at building “a sizeable portfolio of living assets,” in the city across studio format apartments, student accommodation, and over time, mainstream build-to-rent strategies. Further down the road, the company also expects to take on the Melbourne and Brisbane markets. 

Compact Opportunities

The 2025 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey ranked Sydney as the second-least affordable market globally, behind Hong Kong, with the median home costing 13.8 times the median income. That pricing challenge has sparked opportunities for investors ready to serve young professionals and students. 

“Co-living has emerged as an alternative living typology in Inner Sydney given pro-active and more flexible planning policies are incentivising this use as well as greater availability of appropriate sized sites to accommodate the preferred scale of co-living projects which are significantly smaller than BTR,” Colliers’ Papaleo said.

In addition to its proximity to the University of Sydney, Weave’s new project is less than five minutes’ stroll from the University of Notre Dame Australia and the Ultimo campus of Torrens University, with the University of Technology Sydney within a ten minute walk.

Australia’s largest student housing provider Scape, operates a 185-unit facility in Glebe, with competitor Iglu, backed by GIC and Macquarie Asset Management, having opened a 271-unit property in the area in 2015.

The Aussie market entry comes after Weave announced on 11 August that it had acquired a property in Seoul’s Gangnam district as its third property in the South Korean capital through a joint venture with US private equity giant.

Having gotten its start in Hong Kong, Weave in June this year announced that it was teaming up with KKR to acquire an additional six Tokyo properties. In addition to Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, the company also has projects Singapore.