Dahua Group pays $78.65m for 800-lot Diggers Rest site

Dahua Group has paid $78.65m for a housing site at Diggers Rest, according to a report published 27 October by industry title realestatesource.com.au. The deal covers 13-15 Diggers Rest-Coimadai Road and the adjoining 23 Tame Street, a combined 43.47 hectares in Melbourne’s north-west growth corridor, about 33km from the CBD. For subdivision builders and civil contractors in the north-west, it puts a new owner with capacity for 800 to 900 lots into the corridor’s pipeline.

The seller is Prime Equity Group, which bought the land with a different plan in mind. In 2021, in partnership with Homes for Homes, Prime Equity Group proposed a roughly 340-lot lifestyle village on the site. Melbourne Airport objected, arguing the development could put the airport’s curfew-free status at risk. That objection was later withdrawn, and the project was reworked into a conventional residential subdivision allowing 800 to 900 lots, a scheme the site now carries to its new owner.

Net developable area across the holding is 36.39 hectares, according to the report. The property is exempt from development contributions and growth areas infrastructure contributions, and it already holds an approved Cultural Heritage Management Plan, two steps that would otherwise add cost and time before titles can issue. LAWD agents Peter Sagar and Paul Callanan handled the sale; the report did not attribute any quotes to the agents, the buyer or the seller.

Why it matters

The sale puts a fresh price on large north-west growth-corridor land. At $78.65m for 43.47ha, it works out to about $1.81m per gross hectare, or about $2.16m per net developable hectare. The contribution exemptions and approved Cultural Heritage Management Plan remove two costs a buyer would usually carry before titles issue. The report does not say whether the 800 to 900 lot scheme holds a planning permit, so treat that yield as the scheme’s stated capacity rather than an approved plan. The deal follows HMC Capital’s $49m purchase of Coburns Central in nearby Melton West.

The numbers

• $78.65m: the price Dahua Group paid for the Diggers Rest site, per the 27 October report.
• 43.47ha: total site area across 13-15 Diggers Rest-Coimadai Road and 23 Tame Street; net developable area is 36.39ha.
• 800 to 900: lots the current subdivision scheme allows, up from the roughly 340 lots proposed under the 2021 lifestyle-village plan.
• 33km: the site’s distance from the Melbourne CBD.

What’s next

The report does not give a settlement date or a construction timetable, and no council or state planning body is named in connection with the 800 to 900 lot scheme beyond the report’s own account. Diggers Rest sits in Melbourne’s outer north-west growth corridor, where lot releases typically follow further civil works approvals rather than the land sale itself, so the next confirmable step is whichever public notice, planning permit amendment or sales launch Dahua Group or its agents issue as it moves the site toward delivery.

Diggers Rest straddles the City of Melton and Hume City Council, and the report does not name which council would assess any future permit for the site. Until a permit and the responsible council are confirmed, the 800 to 900 lot figure is the scheme’s stated capacity. The 36.39ha net developable area, about 84 per cent of the gross site, is the figure that will drive final lot yield.