Earlier this year, US private equity firm Harrison Street Real Estate Capital agreed to finance a £300 million ($590 million) housing development in Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest city.

It’s one of a number of so-called build-to-rent deals happening as investors apply a model that’s long been common in the US. Known as “multifamily housing” across the Atlantic, Savills and Knight Frank predict it could eventually account for about 30 per cent of UK rentals, equating to more than 1.6 million properties compared with fewer than 100,000 now.

Bloomberg Wealth