For-profit RP agrees £135m of deals in June alone as part of 14,000-home pipeline

News23 Jul 2020Sarah Williams

A for-profit registered provider backed by private equity through major firms Blackstone and Regis signed more than £135m of deals last month, contributing to a longer-term pipeline of more than 14,000 homes, it has said.

Sage Housing signed more than £135m of deals last month (picture: Getty)

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For-profit RP agrees £135m of deals in June alone as part of 14,000 home pipeline #ukhousing #socialhousingfinance

.@blackstone and @RegisGroup-backed Sage Housing “on course to meet” 20,000 home target by 2022, as it confirms £2bn+ committed investment #ukhousing #socialhousingfinance

Sage Housing has previously set out a target of delivering 20,000 homes by 2022, something it is “on course to meet”, a spokesperson confirmed.

June’s deals, which will see the addition of 800 homes into the portfolio, contribute to a total investment of £264m in the calendar year to date, the provider told Social Housing. That is already above the £236m it invested in 2019, and nearly twice the amount (£154m) it invested in 2018.

The RP is on track to deliver 2,500 homes by the year end, compared with 1,378 homes delivered into management in 2019 and 463 in 2018.

At present, 2,600 homes are under management, across around 70 local authorities. As the pipeline is built out this will grow to around 150 authorities.

Of the homes in its management approximately 63 per cent are rented, with the rest for shared ownership.

Social rents account for 10 per cent of the rented stock.

The properties have been predominantly acquired through Section 106. However as an investment partner with Homes England, the RP is also able to acquire homes from the open market and convert them into affordable tenures – an approach used to bring 300 homes into the portfolio in the past six months.

Commenting on the results, interim chief executive Rod Cahill said: “Our results demonstrate our commitment and performance in delivering much-needed affordable housing, even at this challenging time. This puts us on course to have delivered 2,500 new affordable homes by year end.

“Our model sees long-term stable capital help accelerate the provision of homes to those in most need. In three years we have grown from a start-up to become a meaningful provider of affordable homes.”

Asked about arrears during the pandemic, a spokesperson acknowledged that these had “increased moderately as a result of COVID, but… are now broadly where they were previously” following early engagement with tenants. They added that rents are “slightly slower to recover” than shared ownership.