Apache Capital launches UK’s first single-family PRS scheme

The shift to sustainable, private rented residential schemes is gathering pace. Apache Capital has just launched Present Made, a wholly-owned subsidiary that will be the first company in the UK to design, build and operate single-family homes for rent.

A CGI of the first Present Made development

The company has a £1.6 billion development pipeline focusing on suburban locations in Southern England and it plans to own and operate the homes for the long term.

In the first phase Present Made will deliver over 3,000 smart homes, starting in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, which the company says is “one of the UK’s most productive and innovative regions but with some of the highest housing costs outside of London”.

The homes will be built using “modern methods of construction”, such as off-site manufacturing. Precision engineering in a factory environment will create higher quality homes with fewer defects, also reducing carbon emissions during construction by 50%.

More energy-efficient homes will be delivered at a faster pace and with less waste, energy consumption and disruption to local communities compared to traditional construction methods, the company said. The developments are “all intended to promote mental and physical health and wellbeing” and living sustainably will be “second nature”.

There will be benefits for investors too, as the reduced construction time means Present Made developments will be income-producing and stabilise quicker than a traditionally-built build-to-rent scheme.

Present Made has been “four years in the making”, said Richard Jackson, managing director and co-founder, Apache Capital and CEO, Present Made. “Despite record numbers of families renting, no purpose-built single-family rental housing exists in the UK. Present Made will cater to this growing but under-served segment of the rental market by providing high quality smart homes designed and built specifically for rent, delivered through precision engineering and operated by our own dedicated in-house team”.

Present Made is Apache Capital’s second build-to-rent platform in the UK after its £2 billion multifamily joint venture with developer-operator Moda Living, which is delivering over 6,000 apartments for rent in the UK’s largest cities and is backed by major investors including NFU Mutual and Harrison Street. In recent months, Apache and Moda have appointed contracttors to a £260 million residential scheme in Birmingham and a £78 million project in Edinburgh.

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