Coronavirus lifestyle changes play into hands of Build To Rent - claim

One of the largest players in the Build To Rent sector, Legal & General, says it’s to have a second significant development in Birmingham.

It’s spending £100m on 395 BTR flats at Hockley Mills in the Jewellery Quarter conservation area.

This is L&G’s 16th BTR site across 11 cities, consisting of 5,300 apartments; so far it claims to have committed over £2 billion to the sector.

The company says: “As Covid-19 drives secular changes and a fundamental rethink of many areas of the real estate sector, BTR has continued to deliver a stable income return throughout the crisis.  

“The national lockdown, and subsequent social distancing measures, have had a significant impact on economic activity. 

“For BTR, rent collection levels remain high with Knight Frank estimating that 95 per cent of rent in the BTR sector was collected in the second quarter of the year.”

And it adds: “Many BTR assets - including the site at Hockley Mills - are well placed to benefit from some of the household behavioural trends and preferences emerging through the Coronavirus pandemic; namely an increasing need for homes with functional space to work, alongside convenient access to local cultural and leisure amenities.” 

Dan Batterton, senior fund manager in the BTR division of L&G, adds: “In the space of the last few years, the BTR sector has really come into its own.  It has cemented its position in the UK as an asset class and successfully evolved away from the private rented sector.  Showing its resilience and relative counter cyclical nature of the residential sector, BTR has remained largely unaffected throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as occupancy, rent collection and demand has remained high.”