Macquarie Asset Management has launched a real estate development and investment management business, Goodstone Living, to invest in the United Kingdom’s purpose-built rental housing sector.
Macquarie said the platform aims to acquire, develop, and operate purpose-built rental communities across the country.
Macquarie Asset Management has partnered with two pioneers in the sector to form Goodstone Living.
The new business will be led by Darryl Flay and Martin Bellinger, founders of the UK’s first private build-to-rent developer-operator, who have overseen the development of more than 30,000 homes over the last three decades.
Goodstone Living will focus on the development and long-term ownership of rental communities in exciting urban locations, benefiting from a growing demand for rental housing and an undersupply of high-quality accommodation.
”The establishment of Goodstone Living, together with Darryl and Martin, is strategically aligned with our focus on establishing and incubating specialist real estate managers in sectors that we believe are supported by significant structural tailwinds,” said Dana Gibson, Co-Head of Macquarie Asset Management’s Real Estate team in Europe.
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”This sector has emerged as a global mega-trend in real estate over the last 10 years, driven by secular trends including urbanisation, digitalisation and demographic shifts. This has created an opportunity to access this growing asset class at scale, and we expect sustained demand and changing demographics will make it more resilient, less volatile, and correlated with inflation rather than the cycle. We expect there will be strong demand to partner with specialist full-service platforms that can access opportunities and develop, own, and operate units at scale,” he added.
”We are pleased to be partnering with Macquarie Asset Management and look forward to building a market-leading business combining our sector expertise with our partner’s global real estate experience,” said Darryl Flay, principal at Goodstone Living.
”Covid-19 has reinforced the long-term fundamentals underpinning the need for better quality rental housing and we see a significant growth opportunity in the build-to-rent sector as the expectations of renters increase, and demographic change continues to reshape the market,” he added.
Martin Bellinger, principal at Goodstone said:”Our long-term focus will allow us to put down roots in the local community and invest significantly in creating healthier homes designed to promote wellbeing. Goodstone wants to foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and positive change and this means having an intergenerational mindset that delivers sustainable outcomes for our residents, communities and environment.”
