Boom in enquiries for U.K. build-to-rent

There has been a sharp rise in investigation into the U.K.’s build-to-rent residential market by institutional investors as they continue to hunt for defensive investments in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Dan Batterton, senior fund manager, build-to-rent, at LGIM Real Assets, has said that in the last three months, the amount of enquiries that the manager has received about its BTR fund is double the amount it received in the 12 previous months up until November.

Investors such as pension funds are now paying close attention to build-to-rent, as it has now emerged out of the U.K.’s overall private rented residential market as a sector in its own right. Batterton says investors can now see the buildings it has spawned across the U.K. and appreciate their durability and quality. “Now that the asset class exists, in scale, across lots of cities, investors are more comfortable about understanding what it is,” he says.

Another reason for their interest, he