Together and social impact group HSPG house 10,000 people during eight-year partnership

Property lender Together has provided finance of more than £100million for one of the UK’s leading social impact real estate firms who have housed more than 10,000 vulnerable people.

Manchester-based HSPG, which creates long-term partnerships with Local Authorities to provide social and affordable housing, formed the partnership with Together when the Cheadle-based lender funded its first property purchases.

Since then, Together has provided £100.8m in loans to support the vision of HSPG directors Guy Horne and David Searle that everyone should have a comfortable and safe home in which to live.

Alex Bodie, Director of Corporate and Community Housing at the specialist lender, said: “As a business with an established reputation in the property sector, we’re absolutely committed to accelerating the delivery of inclusive communities and affordable homes, and we’re delighted that our relationship with HSPG has helped them to achieve their ambitions.

“Our focus has always been on building trusted, long-standing relationships with our clients and finding new ways of providing the finance that is vitally important to them realising their goals. It means we can be by their side today and support their affordable housing commitments in the future.”

Together began supporting HSPG with funding for auction purchases, where they refurbished the properties and leased them to social housing providers.

In 2020, after working with HSPG for four years, Together provided the social housing real estate firm with a £30m revolving credit facility to fund their growing pipeline of social housing projects around the UK.

Since then, Together has continued to support HSPG with finance to create more social housing across the country, including funding a £7m bridging loan to PPHA – HSPG’s wholly owned Housing Association – for the purchase of 33 affordable housing properties in Suffolk.

The properties, which include terraced, semi-detached and detached homes, are being developed to be used for affordable rental and shared ownership housing.

To date, Together and HSPG have completed 226 transactions, with plans to continue the strong relationship and provide the country with much-needed affordable accommodation.

Guy Horne, of HSPG, said: “We are thrilled to celebrate this significant milestone in our partnership with Together. Over the past eight years, we have worked hard to provide safe homes for a staggering 10,000 vulnerable people across the UK. This achievement would not have been possible without the support and financial backing from Together.

“Our collaboration has allowed us to develop and deliver hundreds of social housing projects. The £100 million in loans provided by Together has been instrumental in realising our vision to provide access to secure housing and expanding our impact to meet the housing needs of the most vulnerable in our society.

“We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Together and furthering our mission to create inclusive communities and provide much-needed affordable accommodation across the country.”