Where is the Residential Investor Market?

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Earlier in the month I presented at a conference entitled “Residential Money – Funding to unlock development 2011“.

There was a strong array of speakers from Savills, GVA, Investec, Council of Mortgage Lenders and Santander to name a few. The conference was attended by 150+ senior executives from Banks, Developers, etc.

The day ran through the current state of play in funding. In summary there are only about five lenders worth approaching for development funding according to a number of the speakers. They are Barclays, Close Brothers, HSBC, RBS and Investec. Others may entertain a conversation, however, the banks are looking at cashflow of the project and the track record of those involved. Where you would have an advantage is if you have dealt with one of the banks before.

My presentation was entitled “The Residential Investor Market”. I started by running through the current dominance of the private investor in the private rented sector (PRS), risk/returns of investing in the PRS and the demographic changes in the next 20 years which will have a huge impact on housing demand.

I then showed how investors in the PRS are looking at the asset class as a long term investment. I talked through the different investors in the market, and how Young Group are looking at raising money to buy land so we can build more stock for the PRS.

The slide below gives a summary of my presentation, and also an overview for the whole day.

Next up, I am on the panel on Wednesday (16th March) at the IPD Residential Index Launch. This will be the 10th year IPD have issued the index, and will be interesting information. Let me know if you wish to attend.