Family Building Society has invested £10m in a fund aimed at delivering thousands of new affordable and social homes across the UK.
The lender is investing alongside Swiss investment bank UBS and Aberdeen Investments in a vehicle managed by Matter Real Estate that will support the development of housing for rent, including homes targeted at families and key workers.
The fund aims to finance the construction of more than 6,500 homes nationwide, with around 3,700 already under development.
Matter Real Estate has already supported residential schemes in Leeds and Sheffield, as well as an award-winning regeneration project in Liverpool involving the refurbishment of derelict terraced housing.
SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS
The investment reflects growing interest from institutional capital in supporting both new-build housing and the regeneration of existing residential stock.
Mark Bogard (main picture, inset), Chief Executive of Family Building Society, says: “We see this as part of our social obligations to help families find affordable homes, as well as having the potential to generate an attractive return for our members.
“In Liverpool, for example, developers backed by the fund have bought up old derelict streets of terrace houses, brought them up to a high standard, and then successfully rented them out, positively changing the character of these streets.”
SOLVING THE HOUSING CRISIS
And he adds: “We at Family Building Society have long had a partnership with a private developer in London to do exactly that as we believe involving private equity in the refurbishing or repurposing old residential buildings as well as new build is an innovative way of helping solve the housing crisis.
“With the Government struggling to reach its target of building 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament it is fresh ideas such as this which the housebuilding industry as a whole should be considering”.
Read more about Family Building Society and Mark Bogard HERE.
