After being an NHS nurse for over 20 years, I decided to try my hand at property investing. After developing a couple of heritage flats, I was asked by a specialist housing association to develop a bungalow for a young man with complex learning disabilities.
They had a bungalow lined up to purchase but the property investor who was going to buy it had had funding issues. I thought it sounded interesting and enthusiastically said (yes) without really understanding what I was embarking upon.
This young man had been known to the local authority for many years for all the wrong reasons – he had been inappropriately housed in various properties and his current landlord was evicting him for causing damage.
There was genuine concern about what would happen to him if a safe home could not be found. He was described as non-verbal and having complex and challenging behaviours, and his care team felt he was expressing his frustration at the situation regarding his property.
I bought a detached two-bedroom bungalow with an integrated garage, which was very tired and needed updating. The garage was converted into a carers’ suite and extensive renovations were carried out to make him a safe home.
It was a real challenge, but I loved problem solving to find solutions that would work for him – it felt like a great use of my nursing skills combined with my property knowledge and some common sense thrown in. We created a safe, bespoke home for the young man, where he is reported to be settled with reduced staff support needs. My intention is that this is his home for life.
However, as a property investor, I had many challenges with the house; I struggled with getting insurance and a mortgage, and the property was down valued as the surveyor felt I had (ruined) it and could not see the value I had added. I ended up leaving far more money in the property than I had intended, and felt a bit burned.
Interest grows
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
I bought a detached two-bedroom bungalow with an integrated garage, which was very tired and needed updating. The garage was converted into a carers’ suite and extensive renovations were carried out to make him a safe home.
It was a real challenge, but I loved problem solving to find solutions that would work for him – it felt like a great use of my nursing skills combined with my property knowledge and some common sense thrown in. We created a safe, bespoke home for the young man, where he is reported to be settled with reduced staff support needs. My intention is that this is his home for life.
However, as a property investor, I had many challenges with the house; I struggled with getting insurance and a mortgage, and the property was down valued as the surveyor felt I had (ruined) it and could not see the value I had added. I ended up leaving far more money in the property than I had intended, and felt a bit burned.
Buying to build bespoke
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
We are now moving into the next phase of the service, where investors are looking to buy property to meet the needs of supported living providers and tenants.
This means providers can list the kind of homes they need and is especially useful for those supporting people with more complex needs who may need a more bespoke property created to meet their needs, such as the bungalow I developed.
On the back of this, we ended up setting up and running courses for property investors to help them understand supported living better. We then realised that many supported living providers do not understand property so we are developing training for them too.
We see the Gateway as an intermediary between the two groups. Through training, we hope they will communicate better, with the goal of working together to create more high-quality homes for those who need them most.
Landlords did not know how to find providers looking for property. At the same time, providers were struggling to find landlords to work with
Barriers
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
There are still many hurdles, however.
Buy-to-let mortgages are difficult to get for landlords letting to supported living tenants, especially if there is 24-hour, on-site care; they cost more and are seen as higher risk. Likewise, insurance costs more and is harder to obtain. These barriers are frustrating and something we are hoping to change.
By demonstrating the collective, nationwide demand for so many properties, we are beginning to campaign to increase awareness of the need for them. We hope this will increase the availability of mortgages and lead to them being more competitively priced.
Supported living has been seen as a safe investment model for institutional lending for some time. However, the larger funds are generally only interested in the more lucrative deals – blocks of flats or larger properties.
There is a move away from shared accommodation and a growing need for individual homes for people with specific needs, especially with Transforming Care. This gap can be closed by private landlords who understand the long-term commitment needed.
Also, private landlords are generally more open to shorter leases, so providers are not forced into committing to 15- or 25-year leases just so they can get a property.
We have ambitious plans to make more property available for supported housing. Through this, we hope to give local authorities and providers more choice over leases – in both length and terms – which we hope will meet everyone’s needs better. It will also make landlords more aware of the need for property for supported living.
www.supportedlivinggateway.com
Lisa Brown is co-founder of Supported Living Gateway and host of the Supported Living Property Podcast
Advertisement - Confused about supported living and tenancy management?
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
Supported living differs significantly from residential care in many ways.
These include the legal implications of tenancy management, resident capacity and the complexities of managing a support service where the housing function is outside a social services contract.
Suzanne Gale has worked in the public sector for 30 years and has extensive experience of social housing and adult social care.
She offers a range of training and support, including courses for local authorities and provider organisations as well as for service users and their support networks.
Training can be tailored to meet your needs…
To find out more, visit www. beaufortnineltd.com or email beaufortnineltd@outlook.com
