How to find supported living providers

Step 1: What are you looking to achieve?

• Take some time here to work out what it is you want to gain or do working with these providers
• Do you want to provide homes for a specific tenant group?
• Or do you see this as good business model and are happy to work with any provider looking to lease property?
• Do you want to build relationships with providers so you can supply them with property going forward or are you after a one off solution for a particular property?
• There are no right or wrong answers here, just make sure you are clear on what you hope to achieve before you get started It will help you work out who you are looking to connect with and how much time you are willing to invest in this process
• Remember that there are many different types of supported living providers and many are looking to find property investors to work with
• Sadly in some cases, poorly motivated or uneducated property developers have gone before you and made this difficult as they may have wasted providers time or been unscrupulous in their expected rent and lease terms

Step 2: Finding supported living providers

1) Leverage existing connections

• Think about who is in your network.
• Who do you know who works in social care? In health care? Volunteers in the community? Think beyond just your friends and family, but look at wider connections.
• Put the word out you are a property investor and you are looking to help local organisations by providing property.
• Ask around, tell people what you are looking to achieve.
• When you sit down and work out who you know, you may be surprised by how many connections you already have who may know just the person you are looking to connect with.

2) Get into your community

• Get to know your local community volunteer at the soup kitchen, become a mentor to support young people in care, help out at the food
  bank, work in the night shelter
• This way you can find the organisation’s who are active in your area, which ones you align to and wish to work with
• You will get to know what is actually needed in your community, who is out there doing the work
• It means when you get to speak to people about providing housing you will underhand first hand the issues and they will be keen to work with you as they will see you as a trustworthy ally
• There are so many organisations who need help right now it’s a great thing to do anyway!

3) Local Councilors

• Your local councilors can be a rich seam of information, they often know what is going on in the community and what is needed
• Go and speak to them they may well have just been speaking to an organisation that was desperate for property and may be willing to connect you
• Or they may have been trying to get a new project off the ground and need property to make it work You don’t know unless you ask

4) Letting and estate agents

• It is always worth asking your local agents as they may well know organisations looking for property to lease

• They maybe happy to introduce you

• They may have experience working with them and can help you find good ones to work with

5) Sourcing Agents and Businesses

• Be prepared as fees will be paid but consider this in light of the time it can take
• Usually these businesses make money by being the bridge between you and the providers so it can make it harder to build relationships yourself It depends what you are looking to achieve and what your long term goals are
• Many property investors are looking to build relationships and work with providers to grow a supported living portfolio

6) Google

• There is so much information online you just need to know where to look
• Sit down and put some serious time into this I have listed the search terms use here so all you need to do is copy and paste them into your browser

Replace the XXX with the town/district where you want to find supported living providers

“Supported Living Providers in XXX”
“Supported Living Housing in XXX”
“Housing providers in XXX”
“Homelessness support in XXX”
“Learning disability support in XXX”
“Mental health support in XXX”
“Domestic abuse support provider in XXX”
“Housing charity in XXX”
“Housing association in XXX”
“Supported Housing in XXX”
“Care leavers support in XXX”
“Veterans support in XXX”
“Learning disability care provider in XXX”
“Supported Housing provider in XXX”

• From this you can create a large list of organisations you wish you to reach out to.
• Write down phone numbers and email addresses

7) LinkedIn

• LinkedIn is a great source of information and contacts
• You can use the same search terms to those listed above to search LinkedIn for supported living providers
• You can then find the people working within the organisations you wish to target and contact them directly through the platform or you can find the person in your target organisation so you know who you need to ask for when you call or email

8) Join the Supported Living Property Network

• A community designed to bring provders and property investors together. You can post about property you have available for providers to see and providers post where they need property.
• Build relationships with providers at our regular networking sessions
• Access training courses, monthly training sessions to make sure you are informed about supported living property.
• Low monthly membership, no tie ins, additional fees or legal agreements.
• Find out more and join here:lisabrown.uk/su pported living property network/

Step 3: Connect with supported living providers

Now you should have a list of organisations you wish to contact, hopefully with some names of contacts, email addresses and phone numbers

1) Pick up the phone

• The worst thing you are going to do is waste a little bit of time, and if you get it right, it could be the first step to a great relationship with a provider
• Call the number and with your best friendly voice ask
• who would I need to speak to about property?
• who is responsible for leasing property?
• If you have a property available explain you have a property to let and who would you speak to to find out if it would be suitable for them
• If you have managed to find the name of a contact on LinkedIn then you can ask for them by name

2) Email

• Using the target list you have created, write an email to each organisation If you have managed to find the right person on LinkedIn make sure you make the email for attention of that person

Explain briefly

• Who you are
• How you can help
• If you have a property available, explain what it is in detail
• Do not use property jargon and abbreviations

3) Introductions

Go back to your list of friends and connections:

• Ask if any of them know people in these organisations
• Could they introduce you?
• Remember a warm introduction is often much better than approaching an organisation cold.
• Ask any connections to introduce you, via email or to arrange a meeting/zoom call.

WARNING

This process can take some time, think of the long term benefits Be respectful Often people running these organisations are incredibly stretched and under significant pressure Do not waste their time If you know you cannot get funding or are unable to proceed on a purchase at this time DO NOT go ahead and book meetings and calls with them Maybe you could offer to volunteer, could you use your property skills to help them? This could strengthen the connection and help them out In turn it could help you to understand the organisation placing you perfectly as their ‘go to’ property person