Dispatches from MIPIM 2026: PBSA jitters, single-family buzz and public-private partnerships

There was excellent energy on the UK stage as Inside Housing Living launched its in-depth report on global investment in UK rental living on Wednesday afternoon. Our research is a timely reminder that for all its housing challenges, the UK is very good at winning investment from around the world. If you haven’t read it yet, check out our interactive online version.

Global investors

As our report on global capital in the UK shows, US investors such as Blackstone still dominate the picture.

Blackstone owns for-profit affordable housing provider Sage Homes and IQ, a student accommodation platform. It is reportedly exploring a sale of its Leaf Living suburban build-to-rent (BTR) business, although sources stress that a deal might not be struck until next year and it would not be Blackstone’s permanent exit from the UK single-family market.

James Seppala, head of European real estate at Blackstone, told Inside Housing Living: “This week reinforced our view that long-term capital – and in particular UK institutional capital – is increasingly focused on UK affordable and rental housing, driven by attractive fundamentals, structural undersupply and the need for best-in-class operators to deliver high-quality homes and sustainable platforms.”

Our report also looks at the arrival of ‘national trailblazers’ in the UK, such as Dubai-based Arada, which acquired developer Regal London late last year. Arada’s London pipeline has swollen from 10,000 to 16,000 homes since October, but it will need to secure several more big sites to hit its goal of a 30,000-home pipeline in the next three years.

Intriguingly, Arada London has leapfrogged BTR and gone straight from building for sale to developing co-living schemes. It is pitching its market sale homes to young professionals currently living in BTR schemes who want to buy and stay in their area, with all the top-flight amenities they are used to. Arada would also consider moving into shared ownership, we understand.

Single-family or ‘garden-style’?

Inside Housing Living readers will be keenly aware of the rise of single-family BTR, with investors buying new build suburban homes from house builders. Single-family deals now account for half of all UK BTR investment, up from just 5% on average between 2018 and 2022.

No fewer than three investors and developers we spoke to at MIPIM this year said they were working on plans to enter the market for suburban rental homes. A high-rise modular builder is developing a low-rise single-family prototype, while timber-frame developer Bywater aims to make a single-family announcement in the middle of this year, backing SME house builders.

Greystar, the US BTR specialist, wants to try something slightly different. Two of its directors told Inside Housing Living they are working on a low to mid-rise suburban BTR product for the UK, similar to its ‘garden-style’ apartments in the US.

“Living is where our future is”

In a wide-ranging interview, Thomasin Renshaw, Greystar’s managing director of UK development, warned that construction costs are about to go up again because of rising energy costs. She called for the government to delay the Building Safety Levy for “a few years” to spur housebuilding.

Bywater, which was founded by Iceland Foods chair Richard Walker and is co-owned by Japanese firm Sumitomo Forestry, also wants to build US-style apartment schemes with three or four storeys in suburban locations, with a focus on England’s cathedral cities. “Living is where our future is,” Bywater’s chief executive Patrick O’Gorman said.

For-profit affordable housing

Last year at MIPIM, Inside Housing Living sat down with James Agar of Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) to discuss its newly launched Habiko affordable homes partnership with developer Muse and Homes England.

A year on, Habiko has announced its first three deals in Solihull, Chester and Warrington, with more sites coming this year.

Mr Agar says the portfolio will be “heavily slanted to social rent”, using grant from the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme, and he hopes to have homes built and occupied by 2029. Muse is reviewing some of its existing sites to see whether Habiko homes can be added.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) is paying attention, too. Asked by Inside Housing Living if London would do its own Habiko-style public-private partnership, the capital’s deputy mayor Tom Copley said: “We are hoping in the near future potentially to make an announcement around a significant public-private partnership involving the GLA.”

He added that through London’s City Hall Developer Investment Fund, “we will be able to invest in this kind of manner, for example through equity investments”.

Through its forthcoming for-profit affordable housing provider, which is currently being registered with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), PIC has the ability to buy tenanted homes from housing associations.

Mr Agar said he has looked at “a number of opportunities” for acquisitions but none have come forward yet. The wait for the next wave of stock transfers goes on.

New investor interest in affordable housing, meanwhile, continues to grow. Inside Housing Living understands that a major European asset manager is in the advanced stages of setting up a for-profit provider with the RSH, with more details expected in the next few weeks.

Student accommodation

Purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) is in an interesting spot at the moment. Student housing remains one of the most profitable tenures to build, but falling international student numbers are a real concern – just look at how the giant PBSA landlord Unite Students’ share price has been battered over the past year. 

In late 2025, the US’s biggest student landlord, Landmark Properties, made a grand entrance into the UK, announcing schemes in London and Birmingham.

“We think that the quality of the UK higher education infrastructure is globally very compelling and among the best in the world”

Speaking to Inside Housing Living at MIPIM, Ioannis Verdelis, Landmark’s managing director for investment and development, said he wants to launch between four and six PBSA schemes a year in the UK, each one with around 500 beds.

“We think that the quality of the UK higher education infrastructure is globally very compelling and among the best in the world,” he added.

The universities themselves have more concerns, however. Professor Wendy Larner, president and vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, was at this year’s MIPIM on behalf of Cardiff Capital Region.

She tells Inside Housing Living that even Russell Group universities are experiencing a “very significant drop” in international student numbers, and that “grim is the only word for it”.

The recent decision by the government to ban students coming from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan will impact cities such as Cardiff, Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle, she said.

Cardiff University has been thinking about how it will redevelop and repurpose its traditionally affordable student accommodation, which it says has reached the end of its life.

The university will decide whether to carry out the project off its own balance sheet or go into a partnership by the end of the year.

Scotland and the regions

It was another strong year for UK regions and devolved nations at MIPIM. From a policy perspective, they have lots to shout about. Central government has committed to strategic planning, with metro mayors drawing up their own spatial development strategies.

Greater Manchester has launched a £1bn growth fund to improve the viability of schemes, while next month Homes England moves to a more regional model with a new fleet of regional directors.

A bigger-than-usual Scottish delegation at this year’s conference suggests that developers are feeling buoyant after securing rent control exemptions for BTR and mid-market homes in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025.

David Melhuish, director of the Scottish Property Federation, calls the rent control exemption a “big win” for investor confidence, and says there are several BTR schemes in planning that can now come forward, although it will take time to truly judge the benefits.

The Scottish National Party looks on track to win the most seats in May’s Holyrood election. If they do form the next government, current housing secretary Màiri McAllan has promised to launch a new agency to encourage housebuilding of all tenures.