Knight Frank says Britain’s fast-developing Build To Rent sector may be worth £50 billion by 2020.

BTR – which is an umnbrella term for purpose built lettings units funded by institutional investors and professionally managed after completion – will account for five per cent of the overall private rental sector by then, the agency says.

Knight Frank has interviewed 16 large-scale Build To Rent investors before making the forecast. It says the lettings market will boom in size from 5.4m today to 6.75m during the same timeframe. 

“Most demand is from young economically active people with concentrations in urban centres. They view themselves as being relatively transient and renting affords them the flexibility to upgrade, downgrade or move according to circumstance” explains James Mannix, head of residential capital markets at Knight Frank.