Neighbourhoods act as ‘anchor tenants’ says new report
New research from NRLA Living and Bidwells suggests that the Build to Rent (BTR) sector has delivered an average of 61% of new homes built across eight of the UK’s leading regeneration areas over the past decade, despite accounting for under 2% of national housing stock.
The report focused on eight BTR-led projects across the UK to assess the market’s broader impact on local demographics, employment, local incomes and rent levels.
The research finds that in Stratford in London and Redcliff in Bristol, BTR accounted for 87% of all homes built over the last ten years, while in Milton Keynes Central it was 73%, and 66% in Blackhorse Lane in Waltham Forest.
It also showed that BTR neighbourhoods act as anchor tenants for regeneration schemes and can drive mixed-use neighbourhoods. It also helps stimulate population growth, it says, attracting on average five times as many 20-39 year-olds into new regeneration areas as other local authority areas.
The report follows a recent NRLA Living launch event in which leading institutional leaders in the BTR market gathered to debate the future of residential investment and operations in the sector.
‘A valuable contribution’
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said: “We believe that Build to Rent makes – and can continue to make – a valuable contribution to the UK’s supply of housing, alongside traditional buy to let (BTL).
“These research findings demonstrate that housing delivery can only happen at scale if the Government takes steps to ensure investment is encouraged rather than stifled. Crucially, we believe that a thriving BTR market must complement a growing BTL sector if the UK is ever going to meet its ambitious housing objectives.”
Iain Murray, partner and head of operational living at Bidwells, said: “Build to Rent is usually judged on the number of homes it delivers, but this research shows its impact runs wider than that. Across the schemes we examined, BTR has acted as the catalyst for regeneration, putting people on site early, giving local businesses the footfall they need to establish themselves and drawing younger working-age households into areas that had previously struggled to attract them.
“That evidence matters now because capital is being committed to operational living in a far more complex regulatory and fiscal environment than five years ago. Investment decisions of this scale should rest on data, and this report gives investors, local authorities and government a clearer basis on which to judge where BTR sits in the housing mix.”
