Future of renting? Fund is to buy and let 2,000 prope...

Real estate fund management company Moorfield has teamed up with PropTech company Bricklane to buy a portfolio of 2,000 homes to let.

The deal will see the acquired homes - likely to be in Bristol, London and south-east England - bought and managed by Bricklane through Compass, its proprietary technology platform.

By focusing on existing properties rather than new builds - and in particular the 98 per cent of the rental market owned by the UK’s 2.5m buy to let landlords - the partnership says it can deliver high returns and an improved level of service and quality of home to tenants.

Both companies have a residential track record. Bricklane specialises in acquiring and managing rental properties in London, Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham. Moorfield is a specialist in purpose built student accommodation and retirement-focussed schemes.

Ross Netherway, head of origination at Moorfield Group, says: “This partnership provides us with an efficient and scalable means to find, buy, and manage individual residential properties for rent in our target markets. We are excited to be partnering with Bricklane who have the best-in-class capabilities—both human and technological—to help us deliver on our shared ambition. This partnership will help further diversify our activities in our ‘beds’ theme and see us drive the professionalisation of a vast but fragmented market.”

And Simon Heawood, chief exec and co-founder of Bricklane, adds: “The time is ripe for institutional capital to access and professionalise the mainstream private rented sector. Demand is at an all-time high, while it is becoming less financially attractive for individual landlords to operate in the sector. Moreover, tenants are rightly demanding higher quality service and more secure contracts for their homes. Access to the mainstream market requires industrialising the acquisition and management of large numbers of individual assets, which is impossible without deep investment in technology.”