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Large housing association buys 496 homes
Southern Housing Group, one of the largest housing associations in London and the South East, has bought 496 homes from Hyde Group.
The association spent £43m on the homes, which are located in seven local authorities: Woking, Thurrock, Southend, Hastings, Rother, Wealden and Sevenoaks.
They include general needs social housing, shared ownership and supported housing.
Southern will not manage all the homes themselves but have signed management agreements with seven other providers, mostly care and support specialists.
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A sheltered housing scheme in Hastings will, however, be directly managed by Southern.
A spokesperson for Southern told Inside Housing: “We believe that our agreements with these seven providers will support our objective of delivering high-quality services to meet the needs of all our customers, and will closely work with them to ensure that they meet our standards.”
Southern is planning to provide more than 150 new homes in six schemes by the end of September. It also plans to start work on a scheme in Shoreham-by-Sea this year to provide 540 homes.
Alan Townshend, group development director at Southern Housing Group, said: “This marks an important milestone for Southern Housing Group, and moving forward our new business team will continue to work to identify new stock acquisition opportunities in London and the South East as we focus on delivering the group’s corporate objectives through our development strategy.”
Linda Convery, partner at TLT Solicitors which advised on the transaction, added: “This transaction demonstrates the continuing trend of consolidation of stock by large housing associations that are geographically dispersed. This is set to continue, as they look to achieve further cost savings.
“As this trend continues, the size of stock transfers may start to increase – bringing hundreds rather than tens of units to the market. This could increase competition among groups that are looking to increase their share of the market.”
Update: at 11.46 on 2.5.18 This story was updated to include a quote from a Southern spokesperson.
