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Writer's pictureAnna Clare Harper

Transforming the UK’s Private Rental Sector: an introduction to GreenResi

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What do you actually do?

People often ask, what do you actually do? In this article, we explain.


Who are GreenResi?

We bring 50+ years of operational and investment experience, including: 

  • £2bn+ UK residential investment (CEO is ex-Deloitte/ex-Head of Sustainability at $2.5bn proptech and 3 x residential investment author/podcast host; CLO is property and fund lawyer who led the UK's first energy efficiency fund through to IPO), and

  • Efficient maintenance of 1.5m+ UK rental homes (CTO built, grew and sold FixFlo, the UK category leading software for residential maintenance, responsible for 1.5m+ private rentals).


We have recently agreed terms for a £50m pilot of our software & service and are working on terms for a second pilot of equivalent size. 



Who do you work with, and what problems do you help solve?

Our speciality is bridging the gap between forward-thinking institutional investors deploying £100m+ pa to UK residential property, and opportunities emerging due to regulatory and market changes in the UK Private Rental Sector, at scale. 


The institutional investors we work with need inflation-resistant yields

with low downside risk at scale, alongside compelling ESG narratives. Appetite for PRS investment is clear, but there is growing recognition that Build to Rent is too slow to meet market needs, with limited scale due to site availability, high carbon cost, high upfront cost and development risk.


Renters face a severe, growing shortage of quality, energy efficient rental homes in the UK, getting worse as traditional landlords exit. Rental listings are down 28% in the last year alone. Meanwhile, Build to Rent cannot move fast enough to plug the gap: private rental supply is down 400,000 since 2016 vs just 90,000 new Build to Rent homes, which tend to be ‘premium’ rather than affordable to mid-market households, and take on average 7 years from inception to being rented out.


From a social and environmental perspective, recapitalising and improving the quality and energy efficiency of existing private rental homes is critical as 23% are non-decent, and 56% <EPC C. ~14% Greenhouse Gases come from homes in the UK; reducing these emissions is essential for Net Zero since 98% of the homes we use in 5 years already exist. 


However, until now, institutional investors have been unable to efficiently originate, upgrade and manage existing properties in the UK Private Rental Sector (~£50bn transactions pa). 


What do you do for them?

GreenResi have spent the last 10 months developing our acquisition pipeline management and portfolio monitoring software and services to give investors efficient access to quality, well-priced, granular rentals emerging as a result of regulatory and market changes, at scale. We do this using:

  1. Smart strategies - We use data to identify the lowest risk, highest growth rental hubs & asset types, e.g. using AI to prioritise postcodes by yield & forecast rental growth indicators.

  2. Efficient origination - We operate a largely automated funnel to generate leads, filter and evaluate quality assets at best prices. We filter from £9bn+ pa on/off-market pipeline by asset type/energy efficiency/renter readiness, e.g. age; costing <£3,000 to EPC C75+ then facilitate cost effective, rapid and reliable decisions to buy/sell/upgrade.

  3. Quality management systems - Systematic transactions, best in class asset upgrades, lettings and reporting.


What are the results so far?

We improve the quality of ‘market affordable’ rental homes, the fastest approach to helping resolve the housing crisis, with a lower carbon cost per home, a lower financial cost per home, and without the development risk/time lag of new build. 


From the pilots we have initiated so far, non-financial impacts include:

  • # homes upgraded to Decent Homes Standard/blue chip institutional quality & management

  • # homes retrofitted from brown to green 

  • Affordability of homes in undersupplied areas for under-served mid-market 

  • £ local investment in retrofit/local worker upskilling


Commercial benefits include:

  • Counter-cyclical, growing income: Target 15%+ IRR for value add portfolios from demographics-driven, highly diversified and defensive assets.

  • Efficient access without needing to hire: Data, tech and teams drive acquisition & management of £120m+ granular rentals per client pa.

  • Scalable asset & impact: UK residential is worth 8x commercial real estate, with <2% institutionally owned vs +20% in US, Netherlands, Switzerland. 


What’s the mission?

Our mission is to resolve the urgent shortage of homes in the UK without further damage to the environment by re-capitalising, upgrading & managing 1 million rentals by 2030, in line with UN SDGs 3, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12.


How do we explore working together? 

If you represent forward-thinking institutional capital seeking to allocate £50m+ pa to UK residential property, with an appetite for the fastest-growing segment, Private Rental Sector, feel free to email katy@greenresi.com to arrange an exploratory conversation.

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