The number of build-to-rent homes in the UK has risen to over 200,000 at the end of the third quarter of 2021.
The British Property Federation and Savills tracked some 205,525 BTR homes in planning, under construction and completed, at the end of September.
This is a 14% increase year on year, with an extra 50,666 new homes. The past three months have seen an additional 9,927 homes added, reflecting a rise of 5%.
New additions to the pipeline include plans from Apache Capital’s Present Made (pictured), which aims to develop 373 suburban BTR homes at the University of Cambridge’s Eddington site.
The BPF and Savills recorded 99,543 homes in planning, with a further 42,032 under construction and 63,950 completed homes.
Some 15,771 suburban family homes made up 8% of the BTR total. The bulk of this is completed (40%), followed by homes in planning (33%) and homes under construction (26%).
The number of completed homes has risen by 26% in a year, with homes in planning up 10% and under construction up 8%.
The pair noted that some 81% of homes are located in the 20 cities where the government has increased housing targets by 35%, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol.
Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy at the BPF, stressed the “critical role that [BTR] will play in achieving new national housing targets”.
Fletcher said that expansion in those cities “shows a real alignment between public and private sectors, with government and BTR developers and investors both focused on those urban brownfield areas where population increase is set to outpace the national average, and there is a need to attract and retain talent to drive economic growth”.
Earlier this month, the BTR industry celebrated the sector’s exemption from a £2bn developer profit tax, following extensive engagement with the housing minister Christoper Pincher, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the Treasury. The tax had been deemed inappropriate for BTR’s profit model, while also threatening investor confidence and scheme viability.
Jacqui Daly, director of residential research at Savills, said: “BTR is the only market segment we expect to expand appreciably over the next five years, anticipating we’ll see at least 30,000 new build-to-rent homes completed a year by 2025, representing a tenth of the government’s target.”
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