Long-standing MP Clive Betts is banging the drum for build-to-rent (BTR) through a taskforce that aims to boost the number of properties in the sector.
Betts, who chaired the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee until 2024, believes that it’s the “Cinderella of housing” - a subsector that receives little attention and deserves to receive more.
“I think BTR has real potential,” he tells Inside Housing. “It’s not a replacement for homeownership or for social rented housing, it’s an additional part of an overall offer.”
He is leading the group of build-to-rent developers including Grainger and L&G, operators, advisors and investors alongside trade bodies the British Property Federation (BPF) and the Association for Rental Living.
The BPF says the taskforce will “work collaboratively to highlight the benefits” of build-to-rent and single-family rental homes, adding: “It is essential that the sector is better known and that planning decision-makers recognise its role in meeting need and providing investment into communities.” It will also consider a consumer code to improve tenants’ experience.
Build-to-rent only accounts for 2% of all privately rented homes in the UK, and is an opportunity to provide properties which, “don’t need the subsidies that social housing does, aren’t at the unaffordable range that people without deposits can’t acquire [and] are good-quality housing with a real future”, says Betts.
“The great advantage of BTR over other ways of providing rented accommodation is that the builders actually own the properties going forward, so there’s a built-in incentive to think about future maintenance and build to a higher standard.
“With BTR, you’ve got a much greater degree of certainty, not that the regulations and the controls will make builders do it better, but their own self-interest will make them do better.”
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