Goldman Sachs Asset Management has signed a three-year agreement with the UK's Urban&Civic to acquire new-build homes for rent (BTR) across the UK.
The deal will allow Goldman Sachs AM to initially acquire up to 700 homes for rent across Urban&Civic’s pipeline of strategic sites.
Goldman Sachs will partner with Pitmore, which will oversee the development and management of the houses, which will predominantly be built for single families.
Chris Semones, managing director in the real estate business within Goldman Sachs AM, said: 'We believe that high quality, new rental homes are an undersupplied segment in the UK housing market.
'We look forward to partnering with Urban&Civic and Pitmore to deliver homes that provide families with well-priced, well-managed and high quality living spaces.'
Urban&Civic, which has over 37,000 consented and submitted homes across eight sites with a further six sites in the planning pipeline, will identify and allocate parcels of land suitable for market rent homes within its projects, alongside the existing homes for sale and affordable homes.
Nigel Hugill, chief executive at Urban&Civic, said: 'We are very pleased to have agreed a new strategic partnership with Goldman Sachs Asset Management to bring more homes for rent.
'We see single family housing for market rent as an important part of the mix of tenures that will give people choice and access to our developments. This strategic partnership will enable us to accelerate housing delivery and further increase absorption rates.'
The agreement will further accelerate the delivery of new homes at Urban&Civic’s strategic sites as well as offering a more diverse mix of tenures, with private market rent to be introduced alongside market sale and affordable housing.
The first project to be delivered under the framework will provide 149 homes at Urban&Civic’s award winning development at Houlton, Rugby which is a joint venture with Aviva Investors.
The framework with Urban&Civic expands Goldman Sachs’ presence in the UK single family rental market, building off the recent acquisition of 918 units across 15 sites from Gatehouse Bank.
