Rentplus secures further £20m of investment to fund its delivery pipeline

In April Rentplus announced it had secured up to £70 million of investment from BAE Systems Pension Funds Investment Management.

Rentplus has secured further investment to expand its affordable homes programme across the UK.

The company is planning to deliver 5,000 new homes by 2020 and has signed a delivery finance facility with Crestline Investors and an initial £20m funding channel has been agreed and is available to be drawn down over the next two years with an option for a further £20m.

John Gildersleeve, chairman of Rentplus, said: “This additional funding is further testament to the faith in both our business model as well as our ability to deliver new, affordable homes and an alternative route to home ownership. With deposits being the greatest barrier to home ownership, we are seeing enormous interest from local authorities, developers and housing associations in Rentplus and remain confident we will meet or exceed our goal of 5,000 new homes by 2020.”

Michael Guy, chief investment officer at Crestline Europe, added: “We are pleased to make this funding available to Rentplus. They have developed an innovative model which requires innovative funding to be deployed immediately in order to meet current demand.”

Rentplus has signed a contract to deliver homes in Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, Northants, Devon, Somerset, West Devon, South Hams, Sedgemoor, Plymouth and Bicester.

In April Rentplus announced it had secured up to £70m of investment from BAE Systems Pension Funds Investment Management.

The Rentplus model provides aspirant home owners with privately funded intermediate affordable rent-to-buy housing.

Occupants have fixed-term renewable rent tenancies for a period of either five, 10, 15 or 20 years at an affordable intermediate rent set at 80% of market rent after which they have the opportunity to buy their own home.

Rentplus was founded in 2013 by Plymouth-based developer Pillar Land Securities and Tamar Housing. The company has agreed to deliver 500 homes in partnership with Plymouth City Council as part of its Get Plymouth Building programme.