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What if you built your next scheme and just… kept it? No sales chase, no estate agent fees, no handing your best work to strangers. Rental income from homes you built yourself, at build cost rather than market price.
That’s build to rent, and it’s no longer just the institutions playing. Big funds put up glossy towers with gyms and roof terraces, but a growing number of ordinary developers and landlords are doing the same thing at street level: building four houses and keeping them, converting a building into six flats and letting all six. Build to rent is simply developing property with the plan of holding it, and it changes how your whole project should be financed from the first day.
We arrange funding for build to rent projects of every size, from a pair of semis to full schemes, through a panel of over 500 lenders. Same-day sense check, decision in principle within 24 hours, and a named advisor who’ll tell you straight if your numbers don’t stack. We’re clever like that.
Why Build to Rent Instead of Build to Sell?
Run the two side by side and the appeal is obvious.
Build to sell gives you one payday. You take your profit, pay your taxes and start again from scratch, hunting the next site in competition with everyone else.
Build to rent gives you an income that arrives every month, homes you acquired at build cost rather than open-market price, and the long-term growth on top. You keep the asset, the asset pays you, and when values rise you can borrow against them to fund the next scheme without selling anything.
The honest trade-off: your cash stays locked in the deal for longer, so you can’t recycle your deposit as quickly, and your lender will care deeply about one number, the rent. Which is exactly why build to rent finance is structured differently from a normal development loan.
The One Thing to Get Right: Plan the Exit Before the Entrance
Here’s where build to rent projects go wrong, and it’s almost never the bricks.
A build-to-sell scheme is judged on sale prices. A build to rent scheme is judged on rental income, because the loan you’ll live with for years (the term mortgage at the end) is sized against the rent the homes produce, stress-tested above the pay rate. If the rent doesn’t cover the borrowing comfortably, the refinance shrinks, and the shortfall comes out of your pocket at the worst possible moment.
So we start every build to rent case at the end: what will these homes rent for, what will a lender advance against that rent, and does that refinance comfortably repay the build finance? If that chain holds, everything upstream is straightforward. If it doesn’t, better to know before you’ve bought the site. Send us your numbers and we’ll run that check the same working day, free, before you commit to anything.
Funding a Build to Rent Project, Stage by Stage
Buying the site. Speed wins sites, and short-term finance buys them: a bridging loan for a plot or a tired building, or auction lending when the hammer’s involved. Our auction finance page covers the 28-day sprint, and our bridging finance page covers everything else fast.
Building the homes. Development finance funds the works in stages as the build progresses, whether that’s ground-up houses or converting a building into flats. If you’re newer to developing, our guide to housing development finance walks through how the whole journey fits together.
The awkward middle bit. Homes finished, tenants moving in, but most term lenders want to see the properties let and producing rent before they’ll refinance. Bridging that gap between practical completion and a stabilised, income-producing scheme is exactly what development exit finance does: it clears the expensive build loan and gives you the months you need to fill the homes at proper rents rather than panic rents.
The long-term hold. Once let, the scheme refinances onto term debt and starts paying you. For houses and standard flats, that’s a buy-to-let mortgage, including HMO and multi-unit versions; where a scheme includes commercial space, our commercial mortgages page covers the mixed parts. Keep several properties and a portfolio-style facility can wrap them into one loan with one rate and one renewal date.
The point of arranging all four stages through one broker isn’t convenience, it’s safety: each loan is agreed knowing exactly what the next one needs, so there’s no cliff edge between any of them.
What We Can Arrange
Every build to rent case is priced on the scheme, the build and above all the rent. The shape of it:
- Site and build funding from £150,000 to £50m
- Development finance released in stages, with interest rolled up during the build
- Exit and stabilisation funding while the homes let up
- Term refinancing against the completed rental income, interest-only options included
- Houses, flats, HMOs, multi-unit blocks and mixed schemes across the UK
- Personal names, SPVs, limited companies and LLPs
- First-time developers considered, and first-time landlords too
- Imperfect credit considered, because the homes and the rent do most of the talking
What Does Build to Rent Finance Cost?
As a working 2026 guide: short-term lending for the site from roughly 0.55% to 1.25% a month, development finance for the build typically priced annually from the high single digits, stabilisation funding from around 0.65% a month, and the long-term mortgage at normal specialist buy-to-let pricing, from the mid-4% range depending on leverage and property type. Add the usual arrangement fees of 1 to 2% per facility, valuations, legals, and our broker fee, only charged once we’ve found you a workable solution.
One number matters more than any rate: the gap between your all-in build cost and the finished value. Build six houses for £1.1m that value at £1.5m let, and a 70% refinance of £1.05m returns nearly all your cash while the rent pays the mortgage. That’s the build to rent engine working properly: your money out, your asset kept, your income running. We model that whole chain with you before the site is even bought.
Speak To Someone Clever About Build to Rent
Send us the site, the build costs and the expected rents, and we’ll come back within 24 business hours with the full picture: what each stage costs to fund, what the refinance returns to you, and whether the numbers genuinely stack. Or a straight “this one doesn’t work as a keeper”, if that’s the truth.
No fees until we’ve found you a solution, and you’ll speak to a named advisor from the first call, not a triage team. Build it once, get paid for decades. We’re clever like that.
Call 0800 102 6758 or request a callback.
Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debt secured on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The headlines belong to the big funds, but the strategy works at every scale. A landlord building four houses to keep is doing build to rent, and there are lenders who actively like that size of scheme.
It helps your pricing, but it isn't essential. First-time developers with a sensible scheme, a good builder and a clear rental plan get funded regularly, especially on conversions and smaller builds.
Typically 25% to 45% of total project costs during the build phase. Once the scheme is let and refinanced against its value, much of that cash usually comes back out.
Against the rent. Expect the rental income to need to cover the mortgage interest by around 125% to 145%, stress-tested at a rate above what you'll actually pay. We run this calculation on day one, because it decides how much of your money the deal gives back.
Yes, and it's often the smartest structure: sell enough units to clear the build debt, keep the rest as your rental income. We set the finance up so both routes stay open until you choose.
Build in slack. Stabilisation funding exists precisely so you're not forced to accept the first tenant at any rent. A realistic lettings timeline is part of every plan we model, and an honest one beats an optimistic one every time.