Long Harbour, the specialist real estate investment, development, and management firm, has appointed Jack Spearman to lead its Single Family Housing (SFH) platform, which will target investing in residential assets across the UK. Long Harbour’s established property management brand, Way of Life, will be used across the single family portfolio, building on its success in multifamily. The firm has appointed CBRE to support capital raising.

According to Savills, the UK SFH market is rapidly growing and maturing, predicting that there could be 30,000 SFH homes in operation by 2027 and more than 70,000 by 2032. The launch of a dedicated SFH platform is a logical step for Long Harbour, bringing to this nascent market the experience gained from over ten years of experience and success across its multi-family residential and secured income strategies.

Jack joined Long Harbour in 2009 and is a partner at the firm, having led the origination and execution team for the UK Secured Income programme. Under his leadership the team has deployed circa £2bn to date and is responsible for originating all new opportunities, due diligence and deal execution. Long Harbour will leverage the firm’s strong relationships, having completed over 1,200 deals with 275 housebuilders, as well as its robust acquisition processes, gained through its Secured Income programme. This will support origination and the firm’s ability to scale up quickly..

Jack Spearman, Managing Director at Long Harbour, said: “Our ambition is to create a SFH platform of scale that addresses the undersupply of high quality, energy efficient and modern, suburban housing in the UK. Long Harbour is uniquely positioned to deliver this with fast transaction capability, an unrivalled track-record in private rental sector housing and fantastic housebuilder relationships.

“Currently three million UK rental households live in primarily low quality poorly managed suburban homes. This, coupled with growing affordability concerns within the wider housing market and lack of mortgage accessibility, is driving more people into rented homes, either through necessity or due to the flexibility it affords. We look forward to playing a role in helping to meet this need and to solving this aspect of the housing crisis, as well as set a strong ESG benchmark for this emerging sector, particularly from a sustainability perspective.”

William Astor, Chief Executive at Long Harbour, said: “We are thrilled to have appointed Jack to lead this exciting new investment strategy for Long Harbour as we seek to revolutionise renting for families and professionalise the sector. His experience in executing deals in the residential market, strong relationships with many of the UK’s top housebuilders and excellent working relationship with Way of Life, having been a part of our business for over ten years, will be a great asset for us as we look to hit the ground running with our SFH platform which already has a large pipeline under review.”

The new platform will seek to mirror the success of the firm’s Long Harbour Multi Family (LHMF) investment vehicle, which Long Harbour has built into the leading platform for institutional investment into UK Build to Rent housing, delivering quality assets, industry-leading operations and strong returns.

The platform’s operating arm and consumer-facing brand Way of Life is a top three rated management company according to HomeViews with a score of 4.55/5.

In August 2021, Long Harbour secured a £650m cash injection for its Multi-Family investment programme, bringing together international investors Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) and Cadillac Fairview (CF), the real estate arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, to create a £1.5 billion platform.

Way of Life has developed a market-leading technology platform which offers tenants a premium user experience through a portal that supports them throughout their residency from pre-tenancy admin and checks through to key services and maintenance during their tenure and end of tenancy management. Another key function is real-time reporting for investors to enable data-led decision-making. These capabilities will be extended to Long Harbour’s new SFH platform which will also incorporate data-driven underwriting to capture over 85 data points for each acquisition to maximise the platform’s capabilities.