Macquarie launches UK build-to-rent platform Goodstone Living

Macquarie Asset Management has established Goodstone Living, a specialist real estate development and investment management business, to capitalise on a significant market opportunity in the United Kingdom’s purpose-built rental housing sector.

Macquarie Asset Management has partnered with two pioneers in the sector to form Goodstone Living, which aims to acquire, develop, and operate purpose-built rental communities across the country. 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 business intends to build a market-leading portfolio of scale, with Macquarie Asset Management leveraging its platform experience to support Goodstone Living’s initial development programme.

Goodstone Living’s ambition is to create a better way to rent. This means designing, delivering, and operating the next generation of rental communities that integrate innovation, sustainability, wellbeing, and customer service into every decision. All homes developed by Goodstone Living will be focused on promoting decarbonisation and creating positive social value. The business will target net zero carbon operations for both its corporate and portfolio activities.

The vertically integrated platform combines the deep expertise of Goodstone Living’s leadership team with the global experience and investment capability of Macquarie Asset Management. Macquarie Asset Management has considerable experience in the build-to-rent sector, with a long history of advising and partnering with specialist multi-housing operators to raise more than $US14 billion from institutional investors over the past 10 years.

Dana Gibson, Co-Head of Macquarie Asset Management’s Real Estate team in Europe, said: “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.

“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.”

Darryl Flay, principal at Goodstone Living said: “We are designing and delivering the next generation of rental communities that are centred around three core principles – better homes; bigger, better spaces; and better, simpler service.

“We are convinced that delivering positive and sustainable outcomes for our residents, partners and communities are not mutually exclusive. 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.

“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.”

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.

“We want to deliver a better customer experience in a way that enhances social and environmental cohesion and generates value for the platform. Significant advances have been made in technology over recent years and by digitising more of the customer journey we can create a more frictionless end-to-end operational platform that is efficient, scalable and above all, sustainable.”