Redrow signs build-to-rent deals with Realstar

Redrow has agreed to deliver more than 500 homes in London as part of two new private build-to-rent deals with property group Realstar.

One contract, worth £120m, will see Realstar buy 347 homes at Redrow’s Colindale Gardens (pictured) scheme in north London, where as part of a £1.2bn scheme it is building nearly 3,000 homes over the next 10 years on the site of the old Metropolitan Police training centre.

Last year Redrow sold nearly 190 rental homes on the Colindale site to finance giant M&G Real Estate for £83m and in 2016 it sold 211 homes to housing association L&Q.

The second deal, worth £64m, between Redrow and Realstar covers 166 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in Southall, west London.

A spokesperson said building work on the Boon Brown-designed Southall homes had yet to start, but Redrow was already delivering a 338-home scheme on an adjacent site known as the West Works.

The homes will be managed by Realstar’s Uncle property management operation.

The deals mark Redrow’s fourth BTR scheme and Realstar’s 12th.

Mark Parker, Redrow London’s managing director, said both Colindale and Southall were “quickly defining themselves as new property hotspots as they undergo significant inward investment”.

Last week Redrow said it did not believe modern methods of construction were the answer to solving the UK’s housing crisis.

Announcing its annual results the housebuilder said it was cutting the time taken to deliver its schemes by reducing gaps between when a site wasn’t being worked on.