M&G’s UK Residential Property Fund is understood to have agreed to its third private-rented sector (PRS) deal, a £50m (€70m) investment in west London.

The 205 units, part of Inland Homes’ Drayton Garden Village scheme, take the open-ended fund’s overall PRS portfolio to 850 units.

The investment manager last year agreed to forward fund a £43.5m, 152-unit scheme in Acton, also in west London, having invested £105m in 2013 in a 534-unit residential portfolio developed by Berkeley.

Fund manager Alex Greaves told IP Real Estate: “As with any real estate investment, the location of the building is paramount.”

He added that some of the best opportunities were in the Greater London region and around the city’s commuter belt in travel zones 3-6.

The Drayton site, near Heathrow airport and until 2009 owned by the Royal Air Force, will be linked to central London by the city’s high-speed Crossrail track in 2018.

M&G is investing in a segment of the wider Drayton Garden Village scheme.

An increasingly competitive commercial real estate sector, low interest rates and an unattractive bond market have brought the UK’s residential sector into the limelight.

For more on PRS and the UK residential sector, read the May/June edition of IP Real Estate

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