Investor prepares fund for affordable housing for healthcare workers
LOS ANGELES: An investor is currently preparing a fund to develop affordable housing for healthcare workers.
A new fund to bring low-cost housing on the market for employees in the healthcare sector. Cdp Real Asset is accelerating service housing and developing a new dedicated real estate vehicle, moving in parallel – but on an autonomous track – with respect to the broader Piano Casa (Housing Plan) currently being defined by the government and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, on which the hypothesis of involving the Mubadala fund also remains alive.
According to the Sole 24 Ore newspaper, the fund will be newly established and can count on an initial endowment of around EUR 100 million, with up to 50% subscribed by Cdp Real Asset, for a direct commitment in the region of EUR 45 million. The target of the interventions concerns all employees of the healthcare sector, with the aim of offering affordable housing solutions integrated with services.
The role of Invimit and Investire Sgr
In operational terms, the project currently envisages around 200 homes and the involvement of Invimit Sgr, which will contribute the properties to the fund, while management will be entrusted to Investire Sgr. Partnerships are also being studied with health sector social security institutions and with the main category federations – including the National Federation of Nursing Profession Orders (Fnopi) – although no formal agreements have been signed as yet. The initial pipeline of interventions is concentrated in Northern Italia, with operations already being studied in Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, areas characterised by strong housing demand and particularly dynamic rental markets.
The fund is part of Cdp Real Asset’s “4 Esse” strategy, in particular the service housing component (in addition to social, student and senior housing), which focuses on flexible residential models aimed at young workers or key professionals, capable of combining housing and lower rents and intercepting new housing needs linked to professional mobility. The aim would be to expand this type of offer to other employees as well, consistently with the strategic framework defined last year by the agreement between Cdp and Confindustria, where service housing plays a central role.
The market environment and service housing
At the market level, the initiative reflects an increasingly evident trend: the convergence of institutional investors’ strategies and the new needs of the housing crisis. In a context of rising prices and limited supply in major urban areas, products such as low-cost housing for specific professional categories represent one of the directions in which the near future of real estate in Italia will move. In this perspective, Cdp Real Asset’s project takes the form of an operational laboratory: a targeted, replicable and potentially scalable intervention that helps to broaden the range of instruments available to meet the demand for affordable housing.