(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Inc. sold 3,000 homes to the UK’s largest private pension fund for £405 million ($518 million), making it one of the biggest housing deals this year.
Universities Superannuation Scheme Ltd. bought the portfolio of shared ownership units from Sage Homes, an affordable housing provider majority-owned by Blackstone, according to a statement Tuesday. It is the second-largest residential deal in the UK this year after Blackstone earlier agreed to purchase a portfolio of 1,750 homes for £580 million from builder Vistry Group Plc.
Blackstone has been betting heavily on residential property as the world’s largest alternative-asset manager anticipates a supply shortage and seeks to invest in real estate with shorter leases that allow it to capture rising rents more quickly. The firm completed the largest UK residential deal of 2023 when it acquired 2,800 homes for £800 million in November.
The USS transaction is likely to please the UK’s new Labour government, which has promised to build 1.5 million new homes over its first five years in power. Institutional investors are already playing a key role in boosting supply in the UK’s undersupplied rental sector, with private equity firms and pension funds both seeking to step in and profit from the housing shortage.
The deal also marks the largest acquisition of a portfolio of shared ownership homes since the creation of the program in 1990, according to the statement. Shared ownership enables prospective buyers to purchase a share of their home with the option to acquire the rest over time.
“This transaction will allow us to continue to invest capital into Sage Homes to help alleviate the structural undersupply,” Blackstone’s head of real estate Europe James Seppala said in the statement.
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