The UK Build-to-Rent sector had its second most active first half on record this year, with several major portfolios completing to take investment to £3billion, according to JLL.
Following a slow start to the year, which saw just £736million invested in BtR, three significant single and multifamily portfolios traded in the second quarter. These were L&Q’s 3,200-home Metra Living portfolio, Lendlease’s Elephant Park and Blackstone’s sale of around 1,000 single-family homes from its Leaf Living business. Combined, these three deals amounted to £2billion.
In total, H1 investment was up 28% year-on-year and 6% above the five-year average, marking only the second time (following 2023) when investment reached the £3billion mark.
Before the Metra Living and Elephant Park deals, multi-family investment saw its lowest Q1 in over a decade this year. Due to the size of those two portfolios, multi-family made up two-thirds of BtR transactions in H1 for the first time since single-family became a major component of UK BtR in 2023.
Meanwhile, single-family investment reached £1billion, 7% above H1 2025 and 3% above the five-year average. JLL says this shows further evidence of continued investor appetite for suburban rental homes and, with Border to Coast Pensions Partnership investing more than £500million into single-family in H1 and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board rapidly growing its presence, demonstrates that institutional investors are becoming a dominant force in the sector.
However, during the period, investment in new multi-family stock, via forward funding, forward purchase or land acquisitions, fell to its lowest level since at least 2015, making up just 10% of all multi-family investment in H1. By comparison, between 2023 and 2025, future stock accounted for two-thirds of investment. JLL’s research shows that the first half of this year marked the steepest decline to-date in this part of the market, demonstrating the scale of the challenge developers face in delivering new homes.
The research shows that the decline is happening at a time when more completed stock is coming to market. Q1 saw the largest single operational asset trade – Ebb & Flow in Reading, purchased by Pension Insurance Corporation from Lincoln MGT.
This was followed in Q2 by Metra Living. At 52 assets totalling 3,200 homes, it was the largest multi-family portfolio to trade to date. JLL says that while forward funding continues to be difficult, there are more portfolios in the market, which will continue to help maintain investment volumes.
Elsewhere in UK Living, JLL found that PBSA also had a first half characterised by one exceptional quarter and another subdued one. Investment in H1 came to £2.3billion, up 77% year-on-year and up 11% on the five-year average.
Most of this completed in Q1, including Unite’s £723million acquisition of Empiric Student Property. But unlike BtR, there was a number of small and medium-sized deals alongside the major portfolio acquisition, pointing to a depth of demand for UK PBSA, particularly in Russell Group cities.
Despite the active Q1, however, investment slowed considerably in Q2, with no large deals completing in the period. As with BtR, there are still portfolios in the market that will support transaction volumes in the coming months.
Karl Tomusk, associate, UK Living Research at JLL, said: “The headline numbers are, of course, encouraging and point to a market seeing considerable investor demand, including from institutions.”
“But the challenge continues to be finding ways to make development stack up. Even compared to the last few years, which no one would have described as a walk in the park for development, the dearth of investment in new multifamily homes so far in 2026 is staggering. With the conflict in the Middle East still ongoing, the economic backdrop continues to be less certain than we expected it to be at the start of the year. If conditions do improve, we should see a recovery in what is fundamentally an undersupplied sector.”
