New Kids on the Residential Block
The HCA Initiative
The UK government’s national housing body, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) announced in May its aim to attract institutional investment for private rented affordable housing.
Sixty-four business’s responded to the HCA’s offer including Aviva Investors, who currently manage £316bn of investments.
Andrew Appleyard, head of specialist funds at Aviva Investors said,
“We are a strong advocate of the private rented sector and are encouraged by the HCA initiative. Given the current market circumstances, we believe that we now have a genuine opportunity to acquire institutional quality investment assets in key locations.”
Other players in the arena that expressed interest included CB Richard Ellis, property consultants and Ageon, the insurance and pension provider. The £1bn investment raised by the consortium to be ploughed into the ‘build-to-let’ private rented industry comes at a time when present housing trends rely heavily on the private rented sector caused by short supply of social housing, failure of mortgage lending and lack of new builds.
Unlike the present players in the PRS, (73% of properties are owned by individual landlords) the HCA initiative will see institutional investors tread on virgin territory as they enter the sector for the first time. While current data estimates the private rented sector to be worth a cool £500bn, it is yet unclear how an investment of this nature will affect rents.
By
Madalena Penny