THE SDA HOUSING PODCAST

In this episode, Minh chats with Tanisha Simunic, an SDA Assessor, accredited Access Consultant and OT, about her work, background and her view of the SDA world.

Tanisha’s Professional Background and Role
Tanisha is an accredited access consultant, registered occupational therapist, and SDA assessor with nearly a decade of experience in the SDA sector. Her career began in occupational therapy, where an interest in home modificat...

Goodbye Postcode Restrictions ... & Hello Distance Restrictions! 

Big changes (again) are reshaping NDIS lending landscape, and in this episode, Debbie sits down with Paul Grant from Axis Lending to unpack the latest finance requirements for NDIS property investing, from their perspective as a Mortgage Manager.

This episode only relates to Origin, the largest wholesale NDIS lender across Australia, and this information discussed ...

In this episode, Minh chats with Bill Kavvadas, Founder of The Fire Knight.

Overview of the Fire Knight  

• The product is an advanced, self-sustaining fire suppression system designed to proactively counter fires by detecting true flames and threats early
• Intended for residential use—including group homes and disability accommodations—offering an essential extra layer of safety

Key Product Features and Technical Design

• Self-...

Join Debbie and Denise from NDIS Property Australia’s feasibility team as they explain their groundbreaking nationwide research reports process in identifying the most promising suburbs for Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) development.

This project was a custom engagement from a NSW developer seeking a top 30 SDA locations report around Australia. This work took 2 months to finalise, and the 5 internal staff members were qu...

• Recently the NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission have been going around to meet with several large SDA Providers. Paramount Disability Homes was one such Provider who welcomed the NDIS Commisson to give industry feedback.
• In this episode, Minh talks to Kevin Chen from Paramount about their recent meeting with the NDIS Commission. Representatives from the NDIA flew into Melbourne to meet Paramount at their Box Hill office to...

This episode is all about Hand in Hand Support Coordination. Minh talks to Katalin Jakus, who runs a business that distinguishes itself from other Support Coordination brands through several unique features and approaches:

1. Person-Centred, Holistic Approach

Hand in Hand employs a deeply person-centred and holistic model of support coordination. This means they focus on understanding the whole individual—mental, social, physical, an...

In this episode, Debbie provides a detailed analysis of the Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) supply and demand dynamics in two key NSW regions: Newcastle & Lake Macquarie and the Illawarra (Wollongong) area.

She examines current property enrolments across both the broader SA4 regions and the more localised SA3 sub-regions, revealing a critical need to replace older Group and Existing SDA homes with modern New ...

This is a special episode featuring several news articles from The Australian. These articles were randomly selected from 19 stories published over past 10 weeks, covering the Cocoon allegations that have unfolded publicly. The audio files merged in this episode are the exact word-for-word content of these five articles, extracted from the website's text-to-speech software. We’re republishing these articles (in audio format) b...

This episode was recorded on 19.05.25, & since then, more articles have been  published by various newspapers, leading to the permanent banning of Cocoon’s parent company Horizon SolSolutions, aswell as its ‘nominated’ Director, by the Commission. There will be a follow up of this episode to discuss the fallout across the NDIS from this scandal which has been played out in plain sight for many years in front of everyone.

Our res...

In this special 300th episode of the SDA Housing Podcast, we have Ian, Minh & Debbie reflecting on the journey travelled — sharing insights about our show, and the process of educating the SDA and NDIS market, to shaping conversations around Specialist Disability Accommodation.

We revisit standout episodes, memorable guest speakers, and important people who have supported our brand, to which have created key themes that have def...

In this episode, Minh and Debbie dive into the recent quarterly SDA data released by the NDIS on May 16th. They unpack the surprising surge in Pipeline SDA numbers and explain why this jump doesn’t necessarily reflect new development activity over the past three months - but rather stems from projects dating back to mid-to-late 2024.

They explore where the pipeline is still growing, the limitations of the current reporting framework...

The next episode of our sub series ‘Ask Us Anything' which was once managed by Matt, introduces Sim from our office, joining Minh & Debbie to address some of the most recent inquiries submitted to our team.

We regularly field a wide range of questions from prospective investors and developers, many of which offer valuable insights that we believe would benefit our audience. It’s fascinating to observe the depth of industry ...

This episode is about the new frontier of SDA - managed funds, and “fund of funds” (FoF) and property syndicates and unlisted property trusts. Why? Because we recently saw on Facebook, a well known SDA property spruiker’s new online marketing to lure investors into their new SDA unlisted property trust. We then thought about it and realised, that every "man and his dog" are now trying to play in the world of “SDA Funds Ma...

This episode is a casual chat about Sydney, and how Minh and Debbie sees its growth in the biggest untapped market for SDA housing. 

Minh recently went down for 7 days in Sydney for Easter to meet up with 3 different SIL providers, and 2 different developers working in different parts of Sydney on SDA projects, or planned expansion into SDA accommodation. He discusses with Debbie the potential of short and medium term rollout of suc...

In this episode, Minh & Debbie discuss the macro state of the SDA market in Australia with respect to the supply and demand, particularly the fact that the huge undersupply over the past several years has shrunk, to the point that Australia-wide, supply is meeting demand.

However not all is as it may seem when so much of the supply is not in the right areas. They both discuss the data analytics of the information across Australi...

In this eye-opening episode, Minh & Debbie dive into the shocking case of a man who went from driving a taxi to amassing a multimillion-dollar empire—with 24 companies, some NDIS businesses—in just six years. Now under investigation by the NDIA and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), he stands accused of fraudulently claiming over $10 million from vulnerable NDIS participants while engaging in deeply unethical business practic...

This episode provides a comprehensive overview of the funding complexities of participants, aswell as the housing challenges in sourcing tenants into empty SDA houses, and the strategies to tenant these homes, either from an SDA or SIL perspective. The guest speakers joining Debbie, our host, are: 

• Kevin from Paramount Disability Homes, & 
• Katalin from Hand in Hand Support Coordination.

This discussion covers roles and re...

Welcome to our next episode with Minh on a solo recording for the topic - SDA Anchor Tenant. We have never really spoken before about this very important topic - getting the first participant in as the first tenant into a SDA home.

Minh talks about the importance of getting the first participant to move in, and the challenges in getting multiple participants thereafter once the house is enrolled and operational after the first tenan...

In this episode, Minh flies down to Melbourne to catch up with Kevin from Paramount Disability Homes at their office in Box Hill, to do a wrap-up of the recent online webinar jointly presented by Debbie with Kevin and Jonathan from Paramount - SDA MELB HOTSPOTS.

The recent webinar was covered from 2 different perspectives. The first being SDA data ‘supply & demand’ according to Debbie, and ‘actual participant demand’ on the grou...