Investors to create purpose-built estates of properties for rent

ESTATES of hundreds of homes purpose-built for rental are set to spring up across Scotland as big investors target a generation of people unable to save a mortgage deposit.

Estate agency Savills said the high deposits demanded by banks meant more households were staying in the private rental sector, which already accounts for 16 per cent of Scottish housing stock, compared to 9 per cent in the 1990s. It predicts one in five households will be renting privately by 2016, driving up prices.

Peter Allen, Savills’ head of residential investment and development in Scotland, said investment groups such as pension funds and private equity firms were already planning to cash in. He added: “Institutional investors are the sleeping giant in the sector.”

They have been put off the rental sector in the past because they could not find big enough portfolios to buy – such groups look to invest at least £100 million at a time.

But with housebuilders also struggling to access lending from banks, they are poised to do deals with investors to build estates of more than 400 houses for single buyers who will run them as rented estates.