UK BTR investment activity in H1 2026 was the second highest on record, according to the latest research from JLL.
Following a slow start to the year, which saw just £736m of activity, three significant single-family and multi-family portfolios traded in Q2, taking the H1 2026 total to £3bn.
L&Q’s acquisition of the 3,200-home Metra Living portfolio, Lendlease’s deal at Elephant Park and Blackstone’s sale of around 1,000 single family homes from its Leaf Living business, accounted for £2bn of activity.
H1 BTR investment was up 28% year-on-year and was 6% above the five-year average, marking only the second time (following 2023) when investment reached the £3bn mark.
Single-family housing investment activity reached £1bn – 7% above H1 2025 and 3% above the five-year average. Investment in new multi-family stock hit its lowest level since 2015, making up just 10% of all multifamily investment in H1 2026.
Investment activity in the purpose-build student accommodation (PBSA) sector soared to £2.3bn in H1 2026 – up 77% year-on-year and up 11% on the five-year average. In addition to major portfolio deals, such as Unite’s £723m acquisition of Empiric Student Property, there was a raft of small and medium-sized deals
Karl Tomusk, associate, UK living research at JLL, said: “The headline numbers are, of course, encouraging and point to a market seeing considerable investor demand, including from institutions. But the challenge continues to be finding ways to make development stack up.
“Even compared to the last few years, which no one would have described as a walk in the park for development, the dearth of investment in new multi-family homes so far in 2026 is staggering. With the conflict in the Middle East still ongoing, the economic backdrop continues to be less certain than we expected it to be at the start of the year. If conditions do improve, we should see a recovery in what is fundamentally an undersupplied sector.”
