Supported living investment finance across the UK

Supported housing is one of the strongest demand stories in UK property. England needs at least 167,000 more supported homes by 2040 on National Housing Federation figures, a 33 percent increase on today. It is also capital-hungry at every stage, and the right facility is rarely the cheapest headline rate. It is the one that completes on time, carries the asset through the wait for a provider to sign, and refinances cleanly onto long-term debt. We arrange that facility.

We work with investors, landlords and developers across the country. We arrange the acquisition finance that buys stock let to a registered provider, the bridging that secures an auction purchase or funds a conversion and the wait for a provider to sign, the development finance behind a ground-up scheme, the mezzanine and equity that complete the capital stack, and the commercial mortgages and term debt that hold a lease-backed asset for the long run.

Almost everyone else in this market is selling the property. We are not, and it changes what we look at. Mainstream buy-to-let lending does not reach supported housing, because the tenant is a company on a commercial lease and the property may be adapted. Lenders read the lease length, the indexation, whether repairs genuinely sit with the provider, that provider's regulatory standing and accounts, and above all what the building is worth as an ordinary home if the provider hands the keys back. That last figure sets the loan far more often than the marketed yield does, and it is the first thing we establish. Because we sit across more than one hundred lender relationships, we know which desks genuinely back this asset class, at what leverage and on what terms.