AUSTRALIA: The Ascott Limited has acquired its first lyf coliving property in Sydney and has opened lyf in Melbourne.
The 197-unit coliving building, lyf Bondi Junction Sydney, will open in 2024 and is aimed at young professionals, business and leisure travellers.
Located in Sydney’s fifth largest business district, Bondi Junction, the property is a short drive to the city’s CBD and Bondi Beach.
Ascott has also opened its first lyf property in Australia, the 105-unit lyf Collingwood Melbourne.
lyf Collingwood Melbourne offers a range of apartments from studios to one-and two-bed apartments with kitchens and living areas.
The property also offers a ‘Connect’ lounge and coworking space, which offers wifi and charging points for devices.
There is a ‘Bond’ kitchen where guests can cook together and ‘Wash & Hang’ – a communal laundry area with arcade-style games machine. There are also meeting spaces for guests to use.
Kevin Goh, CLI’s chief executive officer for Lodging, said: “As a vertically-integrated global lodging business with a strong foothold in Asia, Ascott is able to leverage our full suite of real estate investment and management capabilities to add another quality asset to ASRGF’s portfolio. lyf has proven to not only be a popular but resilient brand. lyf one-north Singapore, owned by Ascott Residence Trust, has a strong occupancy rate of about 90 per cent since its opening in November 2021. lyf Funan Singapore, which is owned by ASRGF, opened in 2019 and it also enjoys a robust average occupancy rate of almost 90 per cent, outperforming its peers despite COVID-19.”
Goh added: “With the short supply of professionally-managed coliving properties in Australia, Ascott is set to raise the bar for the coliving sector as we expand the lyf brand in the country. We continue to see attractive opportunities to grow our lyf brand through our private funds and Ascott Residence Trust as well as via management contracts.”
In April this year, Ascott announced the launch of the lyf Innovation Lab to explore, design and test immersive virtual reality and augmented reality technologies and digital experiences.
With the acquisition of lyf Bondi Junction Sydney and the opening of lyf Collingwood Melbourne, Ascott currently has 18 lyf properties with more than 3,400 units across 14 cities in nine countries. This includes three lyf properties which will open this year in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Xi’an.
Seven other lyf properties are scheduled to open in Beijing, Cebu, Danang, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Paris and Sydney by 2025.
