Granny stacker meets Private Equity

[Will!]

Financial Times: UK retirement homes: the granny backers

I've had to deal with residents in a couple of McCarthy & Stone blocks of flats.

The first thing to say is they're not care homes.  Old people can buy or rent flats (with sky-high services charges or rents), but if and when they become frail enough to need personal care then McCarthy & Stone really want them out.

Their business model relies on old people selling their expensive houses to afford the flats.  As the property market has stagnated they have had to take some local authority residents, who don't produce as good profit margins.

Covid, of course, has decimated some of these places populations, creating voids.

[winkie]

Not the best way of using money, service charges high....get the best advice.

Very many now looking for suitable property where funds can be pooled with children/family where there is separate self contained and independent living, or a granny annexe.....over time saves the tax payer millions in care costs.... perhaps some sort of tax advantage could be built into people looking after their own old, they once looked after us.....what goes around comes around.

[MarkD]

 

Financial Times: UK retirement homes: the granny backers

I've had to deal with residents in a couple of McCarthy & Stone blocks of flats.

The first thing to say is they're not care homes.  Old people can buy or rent flats (with sky-high services charges or rents), but if and when they become frail enough to need personal care then McCarthy & Stone really want them out.

Their business model relies on old people selling their expensive houses to afford the flats.  As the property market has stagnated they have had to take some local authority residents, who don't produce as good profit margins.

Covid, of course, has decimated some of these places populations, creating voids.

We were buying a place from people moving into one of their flats pre lockdown. They backed out mid lockdown when they realised they were looking forward to moving into a luxury prison! Can't say I blamed them, did cost me 300 quid though.

[Megadebt]

 

Not the best way of using money, service charges high....get the best advice.

Very many now looking for suitable property where funds can be pooled with children/family where there is separate self contained and independent living, or a granny annexe.....over time saves the tax payer millions in care costs.... perhaps some sort of tax advantage could be built into people looking after their own old, they once looked after us.....what goes around comes around.

 My Mother nearly bough a McCarthy & Stoneflat in Sussex for over 200k a few years ago. Really poor investment which can only be occupied by over 60's and difficult to sell. Quite unethical marketing, she completed a tickbox list showing how it suited all her 'needs' and a deposit was taken on the day.  Using psychological manipulation sales tactics like this on elderly is really bad business.  Her needs extended well beyond moving a mile nearer to the town centre into 'sheltered' accomodation with a warden calling in, within 18 months mum was in residential nursing home care and the flat would have been a white elephant.     

 Disagree with the "over time saves the tax payer millions in care costs"  as NHS continuing health care funding is super difficult to get and normally funded instead by a charging order/forced sale of the 'customers' house.

 The charging order 'agreement' was signed by my mother, despite having dementia and deemed by themselves as not having mental capacity -WSCC social services 'ethics'...  In two years mum never got any NHS funding as she was in good health-even when on the mortuary slab apparently. 

 Listening to the same Social workers and care home owners VI's ague both that she was too ill to live at home without 24/7 care,  but at the same time her illnesses were too mild for NHS funding made for dismal entertaiment. 

 Decent standard of care costing a £1000 a week makes a good case for becoming a carer, I gave up several years to be a carer but savings made I managed to buy a house from inheritance, after nearly 30 years of generation rent.

Demographic trends, many more living in care with dementia or behavioural problems makes elder care increasingly unaffordable, pre-virus we were heading into a demographic and funding /staffing time bomb.