Legal & General believes ‘build to rent’ can play a key role in helping to deal with the housing crisis.
Through Legal & General Capital and LGIM Real Assets, the business entered the build to rent market in 2016, in partnership with PGGM.
Legal & General now has around £1 billion fund to invest and build new large scale rental development properties, with over 1,000 build to rent homes under construction, or in planning, with an initial aim of building over 4,000.
It also has build to rent properties going up in Bristol, Salford and Walthamstow, with future pipeline projects in Bath, Leeds and London, and has its first tenants moving into its Salford build to rent flats in May 2017.
James Lidgate, director of housing at Legal & General Capital, said: “It’s great news that the government recognises the important role institutional money can play in the build to rent market. More and more people are choosing to rent, and it’s important they get access to high quality, well managed accommodation, specifically designed for the rental market in urban locations that they want to live.
“We are clearly supportive of the acceleration of housing delivery, to which we are already committed through investment in modular construction. We welcome the government’s consultation with industry to bring these new policy announcements forward, in order to ensure that institutional investors, with long-term money can be at the forefront of the solution.”