Possible ways to get a property
All housed student coops in the UK currently (2022) lease their houses with the intention of buying when they have raised enough funds for a deposit.
Find a house for sale and lease it from an organisation
- Student Co-op Homes (SCH) aim to buy properties to lease to co-ops
- Birmingham lease a 9 bed house from the phone coop (soon to be SCH)
- Sheffield lease a 5 bed house from the phone coop (soon to be SCH)
- SEASALT lease a 7 bed house from Brighton and Hove Community Land Trust
Lease or buy an existing housing association or council property
- Edinburgh leases from Castle Rock Edinvar housing association
- Think Savills might be the go-to estate agent for such properties?
Lease from UoB
- Robert Kerse (outgoing chief operations officer at UoB, 2022) suggested leasing a house from the university or the university financially supporting the coop to convert an office building.
Buy a house with a loan and mortgage
- Get a loan to fund a deposit for a mortgage
- Might be quite tricky to get a mortgage ourselves?
- Might be tricky to pay off loans with the target Affordable rent
Bristol SU Lettings
- Apparently they have some landlords who want to sell off some properties.
Find an empty building and get help to buy and renovate
- Probably cheaper?
- Lots more work
- Council would possibly support with loans; they lend to developers that want to develop empty buildings, but require existing planning permission, and doesn't help with buying? [1]
- West of England Empty Property Initiative
- Abolish Empty Office Buildings
Property Guardianship
- Normally quite short term
- No standards for living conditions?
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/property-guardians-fact-sheet/property-guardians-a-fact-sheet-for-current-and-potential-property-guardians