Essential Living has secured the first slice of funding from the latest phase of the government’s £1bn Build to Rent scheme, enabling it to provide more than 300 new homes for the private rented sector.
The Homes & Communities Agency and Royal Bank of Scotland will provide a £51.6m, three-year loan to enable the PRS developer to deliver three South East schemes.
To date, Essential Living’s 5,000-home pipeline has been capitalised with £150m of equity from M3 Capital Partners.
Essential Living chief executive Darryl Flay said: “This funding will help us spread our existing equity further, enabling us to develop our pipeline for long-term rent quicker. There is a genuine need for the old-style housing market to be disrupted.”
Housing minister Brandon Lewis added: “We are determined to create a bigger, better private rented sector, so I am pleased that we are working with Essential Living to deliver newly built homes specifically for private rent.”
The funding will be used to build 100 homes in Archway, N7, 149 flats in Bethnal Green, E2, and a 68-flat project in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Delivery is expected from 2016.
Other sites in the firm’s landbank include the former Elizabeth Arden Perfume Factory in west London.
The government money is part of a drive to provide rented flats to ease the UK’s housing shortage.
Around £5bn of capital has been committed into the PRS since 2009, according to JLL.
