Live and let buy

Back in 1989, retirement housing was in the doldrums after a slump in the property market.Leaseholders were finding it difficult to dispose of their properties, and developments had a lot of vacant units. Values had fallen through the floor and home owners needing to release capital, perhaps to pay for a nursing home, were in despair.

I was made redundant from the retirement housing developer McCarthy & Stone, where I had been director of care services, but the chair offered me a consultancy to come up with a solution to this problem.