Australia’s five most powerful property people in 2025

For the past few years, it’s been a matter of survival. After weathering massive portfolio write-downs last year, the sector’s biggest players are now eyeing earnings growth; 9  per cent for Goodman and 10.6 per cent for Charter Hall. They are raising billions from investors, making them early movers into the rebound. House prices are rising again, yet the legacy of high construction costs has cruelled the supply of new homes. Australia is currently estimated to fall short of its five-year new dwellings target by 262,000 homes. And the Albanese government has made solving it core to its second term.

1. Greg Goodman

The founder and boss of Australia’s biggest publicly listed property company hasn’t just survived the capital crunch; his company, Goodman Group, has prospered. The industrial real estate giant is that rare example of an Australian property company succeeding on the global stage. About 70 per cent of its earnings are generated abroad.

That’s why its chief executive’s choices are closely watched across the industry, even though few can emulate him. While Goodman Group’s core business is the development of warehouses around the world, it is leaning ever harder into the AI-driven data centre boom.

Data centres are expensive, but Goodman has low gearing and plenty of cash on hand. “The people with the capital will do very well, but the ones that don’t [have it] can’t play,” Goodman said in August.

2. Craig Carracher, Stephen Gaitanos

In only 12 years since the pair founded Scape, it has become the country’s biggest student accommodation provider with beds for around 19,000 students in 29 facilities across the country. In June, it became a whole lot bigger when Scape bought out retirement village owner Aveo from its owner Brookfield in a $3.85 billion deal. It is one of Australia’s largest direct real estate transactions.

That brings on board another 10,000 units and has prompted the brand shift to “The Living Company” to cater for the platform’s expanding interests: from student dorms to build-to-rent, affordable housing and retirement living. All up, it’s a $17 billion portfolio of 106 properties and more than 30,000 beds.

This all speaks to the increasing influence of Carracher and Gaitanos in the conversations about the higher education sector – a key export industry with plenty of flow-on for our economy. More significantly, their entrepreneurialism in winning the backing of vast amounts of institutional capital, most of it from offshore, is helping to fund at least part of the solution to the rental housing squeeze.

3. David Harrison

In 20 years steering fund manager Charter Hall, Harrison has established a formidable reputation for deal-making and market nous in commercial property. With that comes his extensive array of relationships with some of the world’s biggest institutional investors.

It’s that capital which fuels the Charter Hall machine. It’s why when Harrison moves, his industry peers pay attention. Harrison held the ship steady during post-pandemic inflation and high interest rates. Now he’s reaping the rewards.

In Charter Hall terms, that means he’s already lining up billions in capital commitments in preparation for what he called the early stages of a recovery. As Harrison puts it: “You always want to be buying at the start of the upcycle.”

4. Clare O’Neil

O’Neil has more levers than most at her disposal when it comes to fixing the housing crisis. And she’s using a lot of them. The federal government has set a national target of 1.2 million new homes to be created by the middle of 2029. On most analyses, it looks like delivery will fall well short. That’s why the federal housing minister is moving fast.

O’Neil was first out of the blocks after the Economic Reform Roundtable with the decision to pause changes to the National Construction Code for four years. She has fast-tracked the approval process for 26,000 homes held up by environmental assessment. While other federal programs, such as the expanded home guarantee scheme, focus on the demand side, O’Neil’s mission is more difficult – clearing the way for more supply.

5. Peter Tulip

For years, the intellectual spear-thrower at the right-leaning Centre for Independent Studies think tank has been sounding the drum on the housing crisis. If you look at many of the strategies now being deployed by federal and state governments, it looks like he’s being listened to at last.With a roster of authoritative reports and often quoted in the media, Tulip is increasingly the go-to expert on solving the housing crisis.

His message is consistent: it’s all about supply. And to unleash supply means clearing the bottleneck of restrictive zoning and planning permit processes. That puts Tulip squarely up against the NIMBY camp. Woollahra Council in Sydney’s eastern suburbs had a taste of his frank views recently when he weighed in on the state government’s plan to open a train station in the midst of its leafy, mansion-lined streets.

The council has been doing “almost nothing” to increase housing supply – with a growth rate in dwellings equivalent to just 0.4 per cent per year, he said. NSW Premier Chris Minns, in giving the station the green light, said to combat “Sydney’s housing crisis, everybody’s going to have to do their bit”.