Central Scotland ‘fertile’ for healthcare property investment

Central Scotland is the most promising region for healthcare property investment, offering “fertile areas” for development, according to analysis from Knight Frank.

Knight Frank's Iain McGhee cited an acute shortage of quality beds in Scotland. Picture: Contributed

The property consultancy hailed the region, including Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannanshire, as Scotland’s care home development hotspot, with a lack of beds, strong elderly population growth and limited new supply increasing its appeal to investors.

It placed the Lothians, including Edinburgh, in joint second with the Borders. The Lothians is forecast to see the most robust economic and elderly population growth, which the firm predicts will create significant opportunities for “developers willing to pay the premium for land”.

Meanwhile the Borders enjoys cheaper land costs but does not have the same pool of wealthy older residents. The Highlands and Islands moved down to fifth place because of a growing new supply of beds.

Scotland gained 320 beds in 2018-19 and has more than 1,000 in the pipeline. However, private-pay homes – those that take 70 per cent or more of their income from self-paying residents – account for just 6 per cent of this total, which could drag on development.

Knight Frank partner Iain McGhee said: “Scotland has a number of pockets of affluence that offer great potential for new, state of the art homes but there is still an acute shortage of good quality beds and the development pipeline is still playing catch up – there are opportunities for investors willing and able to back new schemes in the right areas.”