a group of people working on a construction site

In May 2025, NYSE-listed Civeo bought four mining villages in Queensland’s Bowen Basin. The deal covered 1,340 rooms, with take-or-pay contracts attached. Civeo paid A$105 million and expects them to earn about A$27 million a year in EBITDA.

That’s under four times earnings, and roughly A$78,000 a room. No mainstream property type prices like that.

My view is that staff accommodation (some people call it worker housing) is cheap because the market treats it as a contract business, not as real estate. Whoever changes that will make the money. The Gulf is where it’s starting.

Today’s Brief:

8 deals that show where the money is going
Why the asset is still cheap
Where the real opportunity sits

8 Moves in the Last 24 Months

PIF (via sarcc) paid SAR 2.5 billion ($667 million) for Al Nakhla Residential Resort in Riyadh in January 2025. The compound has more than 1,100 villas and apartments and 23 swimming pools.
sarcc and Mawref agreed in February 2026 to build 12,000 worker beds in North Riyadh for SAR 669 million. The deal is non-binding.
sarcc and Tamimi Global agreed the same month to build 4,000 staff beds nearby for SAR 1.52 billion. This deal is also non-binding.
Founders Fund, the backer of SpaceX and Palantir, led a SAR 44 million Series A in Mnzil in November 2025. It was the firm’s first lead investment in Saudi Arabia.
Mnzil, TDG and Capital Partners launched a SAR 1 billion fund in October 2026 to house up to 50,000 workers across six Saudi cities.
Azizi Developments began work on housing for more than 31,000 workers in Dubai and Sharjah, with completion phased through late 2027.
China Construction’s Homagic brand reportedly won a SAR 2.8 billion contract for 12,000 permanent worker units at NEOM.
Target Hospitality signed a $129 million minimum contract in March 2026 to house workers building a power plant for AI data centres in West Texas.

Behind all of this is demand. Saudi construction contract awards almost doubled to $32 billion in the first half of 2026. In Dubai, a March 2025 decision says firms with 50 or more workers earning AED 2,000 or less a month must house them.

Subscribe now

Why It’s Still Cheap

The risk sits in the contract, not the building.

Target Hospitality lost a government contract in February 2025. Its fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA fell from $41.1 million to $6.5 million, and bed use dropped from 73% to 50%. A camp tied to one project or one customer empties when that project ends. Buyers price that in.

One warning on Dubai: brokers advertise labour camp yields of 8% to 15%. That’s sales copy. No transaction index backs it up.

Where the Real Opportunity Sits

Look at item 1 again. PIF set up a company to house workers, and its first big purchase was a compound with 23 pools, aimed at senior management.

Then compare items 2 and 3. The first costs about SAR 56,000 a bed and the second about SAR 380,000 a bed. That’s the same buyer in the same city at nearly seven times the cost.

“Staff accommodation” now runs from bunk beds for site crews to resort living for executives. I think most of the value will sit in the middle: housing for permanent city workforces.

Mnzil shows why. In November 2025 it served more than 100 corporate clients. Less than a year later it serves more than 250, including Amazon, Noon and Nestlé. Those workers don’t leave when a tower is finished.

Is This an Institutional Asset Class Yet?

Not yet. There’s no index, no yield benchmark and no credible market size. The money so far comes from sovereign funds, operators and venture capital, not pension funds.

Student housing once looked like this. Today GIC, CPPIB and APG all own it.

The winners will build city-based portfolios with many employers, long leases, and welfare standards an investment committee can approve. Assets like that won’t trade at four times earnings for long.

Real Brief

Investors Are Buying Staff Accomodation at…