Goldman Sachs is planning to spend £200m on the UK build-to-rent sector, after hatching plans with Urban & Civic.
Goldman will buy 700 family homes from the developer, which was taken private by the Wellcome Trust last November. Urban & Civic will prepare the plots of land for construction and will bring in a contractor to build the homes, which then will be handed on to Goldman.
The first 149 of the family homes being built for Goldman will come at Urban & Civic’s development in Houlton, near Rugby, Warwickshire, which is a joint venture with Aviva Investors.
Goldman’s partner Pitmore will oversee the development and management. Earlier this year, Pitmore hired Peter Wyatt, the former head of BTR at Knight Frank as PRS director, and Tony Haran, a former director at CBRE, to focus on national acquisitions.
Chris Semones, managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s real estate arm, said the business believes that “high quality, new rental homes are an undersupplied segment in the UK housing market”.
Nigel Hugill, chief executive at Urban&Civic, said: “We see single family housing for market rent as an important part of the mix of tenures that will give people choice and access to our developments. This strategic partnership will enable us to accelerate housing delivery and further increase absorption rates.”
Earlier in the year, the Wall Street bank bought another portfolio of 918 homes in the North West of England for an estimated £150m.
