Ingenia Communities Group  will use the $89.1 million raised from its recent share placement to expand its assets with an additional three parks.

The raising comes at a time when holiday parks and "manufactured home estates" (MHE), also known as long-term residential parks, are returning to their former glory. Property experts say it's also a reflection of the housing market's affordability issues.

The new parks will cost Ingenia $55 million and include White Albatross Holiday Park, on the Mid-North Coast NSW, the South Motor Park, Canberra, and one in Brisbane.

The acquisitions will add 915 permanent and short-term sites and more than 380 development sites to Ingenia's Lifestyle Parks portfolio. The parks are immediately earnings-accretive, cash-yielding assets, with forecast unlevered internal rates of return of between 12 per cent and 15 per cent.

Ingenia chief executive Simon Owen said the acquisitions would accelerate the growth of the Lifestyle Parks portfolio in line with the Group's strategy, with each asset having significant repositioning or development upside.

"We have already invested $119 million in establishing a leading Lifestyle Parks position in NSW and the latest acquisitions will consolidate our foothold in the market and expand our portfolio to over 2800 sites," he said.

"Significantly, we are also establishing our Lifestyle Parks business in the attractive South East Queensland market," Mr Owen said.

Andrew Jackson, director of hotels at CBRE, who is selling the 64-room Maroochy  Waterfront Resort, Maroochydore, said rates of enquiry for park and village assets have increased considerably in the past 12-18 months, with a spike in interest and transactional activity from the institutional sector, with a number of new entrants actively competing for investment grade park assets.

Many of the larger institutional players recognise the benefits of having diversity within their portfolio. To balance the relatively stable income derived from permanent residential villages with the higher-yielding tourist park assets.

"We have witnessed a number of new private syndicates of high net worth investors, pooling equity with a view to acquiring the larger park assets, or a number of smaller assets where operational synergies can be achieved across a portfolio," Mr Jackson said.

"This renewed buyer interest is resulting in yield compression in the MHE sector, particularly for those assets that are well located to services and infrastructure and in good conditions."

Mr Jackson said the interest is also evident for traditional caravan parks and tourist parks which, after a few quieter years, are again generating strong demand. The trade-off for the seasonality that can occur with park assets with a tourist profile, is the ability to generate stronger cash flows through active management of the business.

He said tourist parks have undergone huge transformation in recent years to remain competitive, introducing quality accommodation, facilities and services that rival and often surpass that of traditional hotels and resorts. As a result, many parks are destinations in their own right and this has resulted in a strong resurgence in their popularity as a holiday option for Australian families.