Is an SDA investment worth a look? For years my answer was no. Specialist Disability Accommodation is housing built for people with very high support needs and funded through the NDIS, and when it began I looked at it and walked away. This page is why, what changed my mind, and the bad with the good, so you can judge for yourself.
What SDA is
SDA is housing for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. A home is built to one of four design categories (improved liveability, fully accessible, robust, or high physical support) and enrolled with the NDIA by a provider registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. The SDA funding is paid to the provider, the person who lives there pays a rent contribution, and their care is funded separately.
Why I stayed away for years
When SDA began, I saw homes built in the wrong places, on dark streets where carers come and go at night, and sold to buyers as a win with no downside. Some of those buyers lost badly. I told people to stay clear, and much of what I saw then I would still walk away from.
What changed my mind
In May 2024 I met people building these homes to a far higher standard than the rules require, with dignity for the people who live in them. I have since walked through their homes and met their team. Every hard question I put to them had already been answered, and they welcomed the hard questions. The risks that had kept me out had been dealt with, and so had others I did not know to ask about.
Plywood sits behind the bathroom walls, as the SDA Design Standard requires, so if an occupational therapist asks for a handrail, it can go where it is needed, with no stud to find. From what I have seen, the homes are built well above the standard required, and they are bigger, with a second living area, so a resident’s visiting family can sit together in privacy rather than in a bedroom or with everyone else.
The MRD Benchmark
The rules only set a minimum. I hold SDA homes to my own bar, and I call it the MRD Benchmark: the questions a home has to answer plainly before I would think it worth owning.
- Where is it? Near transport, shops and health care, on a street a carer is happy to arrive at after dark.
- How is it built? Well above the minimum the rules set, with the extras an occupational therapist would look for, such as more room to move and a place for visiting family to sit in private.
- Who lives there, or will? A provider with participants ready to move in, not a hope of them.
- What is the lease? How long, with whom, and what happens when it ends.
- What does it cost to hold? Management, maintenance and insurance, and what happens to the income in a month with an empty room.
- Can you see it in writing? The enrolment, the lease and the figures, not only a brochure.
A home that cannot answer those plainly does not clear the MRD Benchmark, whatever it earns on paper.
Is an SDA investment worth a look? The bad with the good
- The owner’s income is lease income resting on SDA funding the NDIA pays to the provider, at prices the NDIA sets, and the rules can change.
- An empty room soon stops earning. The NDIS pays for a vacancy only in limited cases, for a shared home after a resident leaves and for a set time, so vacancy is the risk to watch most closely.
- It is a specialist property, so a sale can take longer, and the price leans on the home staying enrolled and occupied.
- There are more parties and more costs than with an ordinary rental: the provider, management and compliance.
- Against that: a home built for a real need, a long lease with a provider, and an income that rests on SDA funding rather than on the local rental market.
Building one, or buying one finished
You can build an SDA home or buy one already finished. Building means land, approvals, a build contract and enrolment, with months before any income, though the cost is yours to control. Buying a finished home means paying the market price, but you can see the enrolment, the lease and how long it has been occupied before you sign. Neither suits everyone. What suits you depends on your money, your time and how much risk you are willing to carry.
A finished home, as listed in October 2026
To show you what the figures look like, here is one finished home, offered for sale in October 2026. It is an example, not a recommendation, and I am not selling it.
A three-bedroom high physical support home, with a room for overnight assistance, enrolled in 2025 and let on a ten-year head lease to a provider. Asking price $2,145,000, excluding GST. Net income in year one, as published, $162,560.
Source: the selling agent’s published listing and enquiry reply, October 2026, which say the figures come from the vendor and have not been independently verified. Location and names withheld.
A case study is to follow: what a home like this cost to build, how long each stage took, what went wrong along the way, and what the owner did at each step. It will be added here when the figures are in.
Before you say yes to SDA
If SDA has been put to you, it helps to talk it through before signing anything. The first conversation with me costs nothing.
Nicholas Lockhart
General information only, drawn from Nicholas’s experience in real estate since 1997. It is education, not personal or financial advice. This page reflects the law as at 13 October 2026.
Sources: NDIS, Specialist disability accommodation explained (current as of 1 July 2026); NDIS, SDA pricing review (current as of 3 May 2026); NDIS, How to manage SDA vacancies (current as of 11 August 2026); NDIS, Specialist Disability Accommodation Design Standard (Edition 1.1, 25 October 2019).