Waypoint And Wise Living Kick-Start SFR Push With £150M Seed Fund
Asset manager Waypoint has launched the Waypoint Affordable Single-Family Housing Fund focused on new-build, affordable single-family housing and kick-started with a £150M seed portfolio.
The new fund, which is targeting potential annual returns to investors of over 15%, will be delivered in partnership with specialist single-family build-to-rent provider Wise Living.
Bisnow is hosting the UK's Single-Family Rental Summit in London on 20 February. You can sign up here.
Wise Living has been in operation for over 10 years and had delivered over 7,500 new homes with a gross development cost of £1.9B for a number of BTR investors.
The seed portfolio will provide 531 homes across seven sites, with a gross development cost of circa £150M, all of which are ready to start on-site work imminently, according to the companies.
Waypoint said it had identified a pipeline of 1,979 homes across 25 sites with a gross development cost of circa £570M, with 90% of the portfolio dedicated to houses and the remaining 10% consisting of apartments.
The fund will develop new single-family housing schemes that are affordable and cater to the needs of key workers and those on average incomes.
Last year marked what adviser Savills called a “step change” in the pace of single-family rental housing investment in the UK, with circa £1B deployed in the year to September and more deals being signed after a slowdown in housing sales prompted residential developers to revisit volume sales.
The likes of Carlyle and Blackstone entered the UK’s SFR market in 2023, growing a relatively nascent asset class into a circa £3B-a-year sector. That could yet prove the tip of the iceberg, with investors potentially sitting on as much as £25B of dry powder to spend on single-family rental homes, Savills said.
“Demand has been exacerbated with the current turmoil in the single-family rental sector as more and more private landlords exit, making the untapped opportunity even stronger,” Waypoint fund manager Paul Dennis-Jones said in a statement. “This provides a very healthy, secure and long-term sector for institutional investors to now get involved at a cyclical point where yields are at a historical high.”
“The Waypoint Affordable Single-Family Housing Fund presents a compelling investment opportunity, comprising significant scale, strong developer partnerships, and well-established predictable returns,” Wise Living Managing Director Paul Staley said.
