In the past week, two investment funds have announced committing up to $800 million into Specialist Disability Accommodation – SDA – stating it is emerging as Investment Grade property and predicting 50,000 residents within eight years. It makes sense for the village sector to jump in as well.
Why? The simple reason is that the assured and relatively high Government funded rental income can be a base for an apartment project that may be hard to make stack up as a retirement village project on its own.
In fact, this has already been proven with U City in Adelaide. Uniting Communities created a mix of occupants in its 20-storey mid-city tower.
The $80 million development includes six levels of retirement but also a ‘disability’ hotel and a conference centre.
As important is the fact that village operators have deep IP in the support of increasingly frail people. This compares to the lack of skills that property developers who see an easy dollar in the SDA market. I would feel far more comfortable if a village operator was to be active in SDAs.
With Not For Profits seeking new areas beyond residential aged care, including maintaining an efficient home care workforce, a concentration of NDIS clients in one location plus rental income makes financial sense, plus delivers on mission.
Watch this space if NFPs take up the opportunity.
