€500m invested amid build-to-rent boom

INTERNATIONAL investors deployed over €500m in Ireland’s residential investment market in the first six months of this year, a new report from CBRE has found.

While the figure represents a doubling of the annual average volume of residential investments traded here since 2012, it looks set to grow exponentially with CBRE reporting that over €5bn of institutional equity drawn from the UK, Europe, Canada, the US and the Middle East is now targeting the Irish buildto-rent (BTR) sector.

Unsurprisingly, Dublin is the location of choice, with 85pc of all residential investment since 2012 taking place in the capital. Some 34pc of those transactions were located in the south Dublin suburbs, with a further 15pc located in Dublin 2 or 4.

Twelve per cent of the residential investment during the period took place in Dublin 1, 3 and 7, while 10pc of activity was centred on the Dublin 6 and Dublin 8 areas.

While the growth of Ireland’s build-to-rent sector has largely gone unnoticed outside of the property industry up to now, the deepening of the housing crisis in Dublin particularly has served to bring it into focus as individual home buyers find themselves competing with large-scale institutional investors for apartments.

In May of this year, potential purchasers of homes at Park Developments’ Fernbank scheme in Churchtown, Dublin 14, were left disappointed when Irish Life Investment Managers snapped up all 262 of its apartments for €120m.

The sale of Fernbank in its entirety took the market by surprise, as more than 1,000 people had previously registered their interest in the apartments.

Other major residential investments this year have included Carysfort Capital’s €101m purchase of 120 apartments and two retail units at 6 Hanover Quay in the Dublin Docklands, and Ires Reit’s €40m acquisition of 128 apartments at Hampton Wood in Finglas.