GREAT BRITAIN (March, 2017) – It is no longer about landlords; today’s property managers recognise that happy residents are at the heart of any successful scheme. Yardi invited a panel of experts in Leeds – a ‘northern powerhouse’ city heavily invested in cutting edge build-to-rent development – to discuss the rapidly-evolving sector Graham Bates – Founder and chief executive – LIV Group Jonathan Pitt – National director, corporate PRS and build-to-rent, Countrywide Joanne Pollard – Director – Five Nine Living, Fresh Student Living Andrew Wells – Partner and non-executive chairman – Allsop Letting & Management (Interviewer) Claer Barrett – Personal finance editor – Financial Times (chair) What is the biggest challenge for the build-to-rent sector? Joanne: There are three main challenges. Firstly, there’s not enough stock. Everyone wants to pile in from an investment perspective – and if you want to buy assets producing rents, that’s a challenge. Secondly, we’re all learning about this together. There are new practices and we need to find the best ones. And finally, costs. How much of a premium are people prepared to pay? Jonathan: I agree – the big challenge is where the private rented sector (PRS) sits in the market. What is the premium people will pay to live in a well-run building with amenities? And what about mid-market level? Graham: PRS is not the right label. What we do is build-to-rent. The private rented sector as a whole includes buy-to-let. We are a segment of PRS but what makes us different is that we are building for long-term rental. We are starting to see what I call ‘live learning’. As this sector started to take off, people talked about what might happen. Now we’ve got people living in buildings. We have data. We can conduct...