UK: New data from the BPF has revealed a 35 per cent rise in consented BTR homes over the last 12 months.
Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, said: “Despite the continuing decline in the number of starts on sites and overall completions of new BTR accommodation, there are some tentative green shoots that the planning pipeline is improving. This positions the BTR sector quite well for when the development market once again picks up and is potentially an early sign at investor and developer confidence is slowly starting to return, especially within London.
“In the context of challenging delivery figures for housing overall, BTR has an increasingly important role to play in rapidly converting consents to homes as it is not reliant upon future sales absorption. Investor appetite for Build to Rent remains strong and that is certainly something which the government needs to carefully consider in the context of its forthcoming housing strategy,” he added.
The increase in the number of planning consents granted in Q4 2024 is most pronounced within London, which has seen the most BTR consents granted by an English region at 7,523 homes, with 48 per cent of those granted in Q4 2024.
The rise in BTR consents should provide a boost to the overall housing delivery pipeline in London, which remains subdued with only 680 starts on site for all housing types in Q1 to Q3 2024, according to the latest provisional ONS data.
Outside of London, the West Midlands recorded the highest number of new consents in 2024, mostly driven by Birmingham which saw almost 3,700 homes consented out of 4,038. Birmingham now has nearly 12,000 homes either completed or under construction.
The BPF figures show that the total number of completed homes BTR homes now stands at more than 123,000.
