Rewind nine years. The 2012 Montague Report is commissioned by the U.K. government to review institutional investment into the build-to-rent (BTR) or private rental sector (PRS) and find out why investors remain wary.
One year later, the ball started rolling. PRUPIM, (now M&G Real Estate), acquired a £105 million (€123 million/$144 million), 534-unit residential portfolio from the Berkeley Group. Then in 2015, Rockspring and Atlas Residential purchased a £36 million (€42 million/$49 million), 279-unit development site in Southampton — one of the very first regional BTR investments in the U.K.
Fast forward to 2021 and the snowball effect is clear. BTR is rapidly emerging, not only as a residential heavyweight, but as an institutional one too. Though still evolving, it offers enormous growth potential. With its total worth at just under £100 billion (€118 billion/$137 million) today, Savills predicts it will reach £500 billion (€588 billion/$686 billion
