DTZ and The Collective launch £650m London co-living housing fund

DTZ Investors and The Collective plan to raise up to £650m (€740.8bn) for a newly launched London co-living fund.

The companies said they have partnered to launch the COLIV fund to buy or forward-fund, between six and ten co-living assets, with a target gross asset value of £1bn over the ten-year life of the fund.

The COLIV fund – which has also announced its first deal – has been set up with £70m of seed capital, with DTZ and The Collective equally committing to the £10m sponsor co-investment.

The fund is forward funding the Collective Harrow, a nine-storey building with 222 shared living rooms.

The Collective is development manager for The Collective Harrow, where construction is underway with completion targeted for 2021.

European real estate fund manager DTZ will act as the investment adviser to the COLIV fund, with co-living platform The Collective acting as asset manager and property manager.

The partners said the fund has identified a strong pipeline comprising both existing assets from The Collective, as well as new investment opportunities.

DTZ Investors’ CEO, Chris Cooper, said: “Our aim is to have a positive impact beyond the four walls of our real estate, and in this regard, I am thrilled to have teamed up with The Collective, a business we have grown to know very well over the past few years.”

Reza Merchant, CEO and founder of The Collective, said the launch of this fund, which aims to bring £1bn of institutional capital into the co-living market in London over the course of the next 10 years, marks this sector’s arrival as an institutional asset class.