Housing association and CBRE agree deal to develop 1,000 homes

Housing association Thrive Homes has signed a deal with CBRE to develop and acquire around 1,000 homes.

Under the partnership, CBRE Investment Management’s UK Affordable Housing Fund will purchase homes that are developed by Thrive and share the risk and return of ownership over the long term. Thrive will manage the properties and retain minority economic interest.

Thrive will use the proceeds from the sales to develop further homes as it seeks to double in size within 10 years. This week it announced the sale of 117 affordable rent and shared ownership homes across six schemes to CBRE as the first deal under the partnership.

Thrive Homes, which currently manages 5,000 homes in the home counties, believes the partnership will help it increase its annual development from 300 to 500 homes.

Jack Burnham, executive director of growth & investment at Thrive Homes said: “We are extremely excited to announce our partnership with CBRE Investment Management.

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“It helps to provide Thrive with a viable route to meet our strategic growth objectives to double in size, increasing our development programme to over 500 homes per annum, but most importantly will enable us to deliver much needed affordable homes in areas that are some of the most expensive to live in the UK.

CBRE’s UK Affordable Housing Fund was launched in 2018 with £250m of capital and last May raised a further £120m. It invests in social and affordable rented and private rented sector housing along with shared ownership. To date it has invested in around 1,000 homes and has scope to invest in around 2,000 overall.

Andrew Davey, fund manager of CBRE Investment Management’s Affordable Housing Fund said: “By delivering much needed affordable homes we are meeting our investors’ social impact objectives as well as investing in good quality homes managed by Thrive to provide long-term income for investors.

“This transaction concluded a successful year for the Fund. We have experienced significant interest from investors who are increasingly seeking an investment opportunity which provides both demonstrable impact qualities whilst maintaining robust return characteristics”.