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L&G’s First Build to Rent Scheme Welcomes its First Residents
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
Legal & General’s (L&G) first Build to Rent scheme, The Slate Yard in Salford, is welcoming its first residents this week.
For the first time, these tenants will be able to experience L&G’s new service-orientated proposition.
Across its Build to Rent sites, L&G is creating bespoke, quality private rental housing that offers a positive choice for elective renters.
The Slate Yard will offer residents a lifestyle that they would otherwise not have access to – even if they owned their own homes. This includes a 24/7 onsite team, which will attend to emergencies within a matter of hours, without the residents having to wait in, and can also help to arrange everything from deliveries to events. They can even arrange housekeeping services, such as picking up and dropping off dry cleaning.
L&G’s First Build to Rent Scheme Welcomes its First Residents
The tenants will also benefit from favourable all-in costs, through significantly reduced energy costs, no letting fees and free services, such as Wi-Fi and a car club. This equates to a saving of around £150 a month per apartment.
Green initiatives include solar panels on the roof, which provide the building with communal lighting and power, and secure cycle storage.
The Slate Yard also boasts a stylish riverside residents’ lounge, with free coffee on tap, which offers a vibrant environment for tenants to work in, meet other residents and entertain guests.
Renters are also being offered longer and more flexible tenancies to create greater occupational security, with tenancy options ranging from six months to five years. They can also decorate their own homes and keep pets – options traditionally only available to homeowners – with a readily available tradesperson to do any alterations for them.
Located on Stanley Street, on the banks of the River Irwell and part of English Cities Fund’s New Bailey regeneration area of Salford, the 225-unit scheme is being developed in two phases. The first phase, which includes 90 apartments, has now been launched to the market and is ready for tenants to move into.
The Build to Rent Fund Manager at LGIM Real Assets, Dan Batterton, comments on the opening: “Our Build to Rent vision has now come to life. For too long, renters have found themselves at the mercy of expensive moving fees, unresponsive managers, and private landlords who often want to minimise upkeep costs and maximise rents. At the Slate Yard, we have been able to offer significantly reduced living costs because of economies of scale, which a private landlord just wouldn’t be able to do. The scheme’s build maximises energy efficiencies, and the combined weight of our negotiation power with external service providers allows us to save our customers thousands of pounds in bills each year.
“The improved service proposition and flexible leases have already attracted a wide range of residents. We have families, pet owners, empty nesters and young couples who have already reserved homes and are moving in this week, which is testament to how this new level of service and offering allows for all types of residents’ needs, and gives them choice. We want our customers to feel like they are in their home, not staying in someone else’s.”
Mathieu Elshout, the Senior Director of Private Real Estate at PGGM, adds: “The Slate Yard is a very good example of our Build to Rent partnership strategy with L&G – investing in strong urban regeneration locations where we can build sustainable schemes that will have a positive impact on the built environment over the long term. As a responsible investor of Dutch pension capital, this is an excellent fit. The Slate Yard is the first of our Build to Rent investments to be launched and we look forward to delivering new fit-for-purpose schemes in strategic city centre locations across the UK.”
L&G’s total investment capability for the Build to Rent sector currently stands at around £1 billion, having raised capital from major pension funds for an open-ended Build to Rent fund, as well as a £600m JV investment by Legal & General Capital and PGGM.
As well as Salford, its existing sites in Bristol, Bath, Leeds and Walthamstow are progressing well, with construction work for both Bath and Walthamstow due to begin this summer.
Focused on key urban regeneration areas centred around transport hubs, it is targeting schemes of over 150 units, taking advantage of economies of scale, in order to deliver better value and more choice for its residents, while building sustainable, vibrant communities.
