Residential Real Estate Housing Market

It’s a trend driven by multiple factors - most obviously, the affordability of housing – in a market that’s evolving in step with demographic changes.  As an investment, the UK PRS market also represents a sustainable long-term source of revenue.

We help our clients to deliver quality rental communities around the UK, by advising them at every stage of the PRS development and delivery cycle.

That means we’re often involved from the very earliest stages, sourcing the right sites with the right capacity and then guiding clients through the process of assessment, funding, acquisition and development. And we support them well beyond project completion. Our strategic partnership with PRSim, who have over 55,000 homes under management, provides clients with a spectrum of property management services.

Our aim is consistent: to see the successful cost-conscious realisation of a PRS scheme, regardless of scale. It’s also a goal that we set for all our clients, from institutional investors embarking on build-to-rent schemes to small scale landlords seeking to expand their portfolio. Private rented accommodation is a vital part of the UK’s housing solution, and one which we have the expertise and skill to help you deliver.

Medium term transactional volumes in the UK Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) market have been in excess of £5 billion annually. It is now a highly liquid asset class attracting capital from across the globe. Higher Education remains one of the UK’s strongest exports attracting over 560,000 international students in 2020/21 and is widely expected to continue its growth trajectory. Student accommodation investors are attracted by scalable opportunities offering long term stable cashflows with counter cyclical properties and inflation hedged rental growth due to a structural supply and demand imbalance.

We help our clients to capitalise on opportunities in the UK PBSA market through expert services that include transactions, valuation, building consultancy, planning, project management and consultancy.

It’s common knowledge that the UK’s population is getting older. What’s not as widely known, however, is the shortfall of suitable accommodation as demand for age restricted housing continues to outstrip supply. We’ve been involved in the sector since its early stages of development, and are specialists in all models of age-restricted accommodation - both with and without care.

The UK's development market has produced a chronic lack of age restricted housing across all price points of the market – from affordable rental to bespoke, luxury retirement homes for sale. As the Baby Boomer generation moves in to retirement we are beginning to see a cultural shift of retirees increasingly drawn to communities where access to care is available as and when they need it and this will further increase opportunities for investors and developers alike.

Our experts have acted for the majority of the UK’s major operators, developers and investors in the public and private sectors. It’s given us an unparalleled grasp of the housing investment proposition. And it makes us perfect partners for your retirement housing project.

The need for genuinely affordable housing across the UK continues to outstrip supply by an ever increasing margin. Housebuilding by councils has fallen significantly in recent decades, only partially replaced by housing associations and the private sector. As the affordability gap continues to widen more and more households are likely to be pulled into affordable housing. The sector needs to find new and innovative ways of funding and delivering more affordable homes and we are at the forefront of this innovation across the public and private sectors.

There is a requirement for all parties to work collaboratively to find solutions that reduce the cost of delivering affordable homes. Many investors are seeking long-term, predictable income streams that are underpinned by affordable housing’s attractive investment fundamentals and sustainable demand and we work with the key protagonists to deliver attractive investments to investors that will aid the delivery of homes.

Across our businesses, we have unmatched expertise in the delivery of affordable housing-related projects, which includes planning, economic viability assessments, and disposal of S106 obligations. We are market leading advisers in structuring affordable housing investment across all tenures such as general needs, shared ownership, supported and extra care housing.

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There’s no single solution to the UK’s current housing situation. Among the wide variety of approaches needed to provide the accommodation the country needs, estate renewal is vitally important. We help local authorities and housing associations to unlock the potential of their holdings through specialist advice that’s relevant, cost-conscious and aligned with their ambitions.

With teams experienced in estate renewal project delivery from a planning, development, funding and partner procurement perspectives, it’s perhaps unsurprising that we’ve supported over 35 schemes in London alone and over 70 across the whole country – which is helping to deliver more than 50,000 homes nationwide. Our granular understanding of partnership arrangements has also opened up new funding possibilities for clients looking to share risk, and reward, with the private sector.

Our teams are made up of consultants in different real estate areas - because we understand the importance of integrating technical and market knowledge in our advice. It means our clients can tap into the combined expertise of planning, regeneration, development, finance, and land assembly/CPO experts, usually through a single point of contact.

Estate renewal is a complex process, but enormously rewarding if well implemented. By taking a holistic view of regeneration and applying fundamental principles of placemaking, we help to inject new life into estates. And bring the social, financial and health benefits associated with effective renewal to their residents.

The co living sector, whilst fledgling, is a huge, global growth market, fuelled by significant demand for community-driven, affordable, high quality, serviced-rented accommodation.

Our experts in the co living sector across the business provide our clients with a breadth of services including housing investment, real estate finance, planning and project management.

We advise a range of clients on their portfolios including some of the most high profile co living developers on a global scale.

Our specialist Social Housing Team focuses on the Valuation for Loan Security of social and affordable housing assets owned by many of the UK’s housing associations and related organisations, both large and small. We work throughout the UK and act for lenders who are active in the social housing market, including many banks and building societies as well as bond and private placements.

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