Matter Real Estate, the Northern Europe-focused company, has revealed that backing to the tune of £150 mln (€178 mln) has been secured from a lending partner to grow a single family residential developer and operator in the UK that it first invested in six years ago.
The new five-year finance facility will help Placefirst deliver on plans to construct 6,500 residences in the UK in the coming years.
The loan is secured against over 1,000 stabilised SFR units across 11 different projects, including Elevate in Manchester, The Welsh Streets in Liverpool, Skye Edge in Sheffield, and other locations in multiple regions.
Matter Real Estate first backed Placefirst and its management in 2016. Since then, numerous projects have commenced and the portfolio has continued to grow, with Placefirst recently hitting a milestone of 1,500 homes in April 2022.
David Christie, CEO at Matter Real Estate, said: ‘It's been a record year for growth in our portfolio, and we look forward to continuing to work with Placefirst to support its ambitious growth plans as part of our ongoing commitment to developing high-quality, attainable real estate.'
The UK does not have enough housing – the shortfall is put at as much as 12 mln homes.
Christie said: ‘Single family rental, be it attainable or affordable housing, can play an important role in solving this problem and that is why Matter will continue to build and back companies like Placefirst, creating scaled, institutional-quality platforms that can provide high-quality places to live across the UK.'
Matter Real Estate focuses on value-add and opportunistic real estate.
