DomaCom to offer investors $250m in affordable housing for essential workers

Essential workers will soon have more affordable housing in the coming years with DomaCom (ASX: DCL) partnering with BlueCHP to deliver $250 million in affordable housing properties which will be offered to investors fractional property investment opportunities.

The $250m commitment is part of the DomaCom Affordable Property Accelerator which will be used to allow investors to invest in the properties that will be managed by BlueCHP, a Community Housing Provider which accesses low-cost Government housing loans. Once developed, these rental properties can be accessed by essential workers (teachers, nurses, firefighters, police) with rental discounts of 25% lower than market rates.

“One of the hurdles for investors in helping to deliver affordable housing is that they cannot sacrifice investment returns to deliver ethical investment outcomes,” said DomaCom CEO, Arthur Naoumidis.

“This is particularly important to superannuation funds as they are required to comply with the Sole Purpose Test when investing and are not able to accept discounted investment returns even if it is for a good social purpose.

“This project will both deliver attractive investment returns whilst also providing affordable housing to essential workers.”

The partnership will initially commence in 2021 with a pilot project to be valued around $10 million. Under DomaCom’s Accelerator program, discounts obtained from developers can offer price discounts for investors as well as 5% equity incentives for essential workers as an additional leasing incentive.

Having delivered more than 1,700 affordable homes over the past 10 years, BlueCHP provides a bridge between the commercial work and not-for-profit community services.

“Accessing capital has been one of the major issues for community housing providers and this arrangement solves this problem by allowing private investors to complement the low-cost NHFIC loans that we have been able to access since 2018,” said BlueCHP CEO, Charles Northcote.

Although DomaCom reported a 43% increase in revenue to $0.39m for FY20, the Company incurred a $5.7m net loss over the period but has since raised $3.6m in capital as part of a recapitalisation project.