NHFIC surpasses $500m in affordable housing finance

The NHFIC said it has thus far lent more than $515 million to community housing providers (CHPs), helping support the delivery of over 560 new homes directly. 

The latest loan, to the value of $15 million with a 10-year term, was provided to major CHP, SGCH Group, which has a portfolio of more than 6,300 homes across the Sydney metro region. 

“We also have a strong pipeline of additional potential transactions with CHPs right around the country,” NHFIC chief executive Nathan Dal Bon said. 

SGCH Group CEO Scott Langford welcomed the $15-million funding facility for its parent company, which contributes to their total $410 million in facilities across the group.

“I particularly acknowledge NHFIC’s CEO Nathan Dal Bon and chairman Brendan Crotty for their achievements in their first year of operation and appreciate the work they’ve done,” Mr Langford said. 

“They have built upon the leadership of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing Michael Sukkar in establishing NHFIC and recognising the shared value of the community housing industry.” 

He continued: “I look forward to building on this relationship and upon the increasing recognition of social housing as social infrastructure. We have the opportunity to develop this as a larger scale asset class which will benefit the community, the economy and our environment.”

On 1 July 2019, the NHFIC launched the Capacity Building Program, which allows eligible CHPs to access grants of up to $20,000 for professional advisory services to help them with the upfront finance and business planning work required to support an NHFIC loan application. 

The grants cover consultancy services in:

• Finance - such as project and business financial modelling, fund-raising, financial risk analysis and key ratios
• Business planning - including project and business planning, preparation of business cases, forming partnerships, monitoring results
• Property development - for help developing or procuring new social and affordable housing, mixed tenure, sustainable and accessible property design, urban planning, place making
• Risk management - such as understanding risks (business, financial, policy, governance, etc.) and managing, monitoring and mitigating risk

The program is being administered by the Community Housing Industry Association Limited on NHFIC’s behalf. 

[Related: New grant scheme opens for community housing]