Grainger has topped out Alloy Apartments, a £75m (€90m) Build to Rent scheme of 179 homes at Guildford Station, a milestone that shows institutional rental housing near stations progressing through construction even as BTR starts across the UK have fallen sharply.

Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, has a secured Build to Rent pipeline of about 4,000 homes worth £1.2bn (€1.44bn), and its first Guildford scheme ended its 2026 financial year fully occupied.

JJ Rhatigan, founded in 1952 and headquartered in Galway, is a family-owned contractor whose UK arm lifted revenue 26% to £195m (€234m) and pre-tax profit to £16.9m (€20.3m) in the year to October 2025.

The scheme sits within the wider £150m (€180m) Guildford station quarter regeneration delivered with Solum, a joint venture between Platform4, Network Rail’s property development company, and Kier Property, which includes £25m (€30m) of station improvements.

Practical completion remains scheduled for early 2028, with homes available to renters in mid-2028, and together the two Guildford schemes provide 277 homes and more than £116m (€139m) of investment.

Grainger Chief Executive Dame Helen Gordon said the topping out reflects the strength of the partnerships involved, while Kier Property Group Managing Director Leigh Thomas said the scheme makes better use of land around the station.

The scheme is valued at about £75m (€90m); the construction contract value was not stated.

The topping out lands in a market where supply is thinning: BTR starts on site fell 63% in the third quarter of 2026 to 4,696, with a 78% drop in the regions, and completions exceeded starts for an eleventh consecutive quarter, according to Savills research for Real Estate:UK.

Capital is still arriving: Savills reported more than £900m (€1.08bn) of UK BTR investment in the third quarter, taking year-to-date investment above £4bn (€4.8bn), already ahead of the same point in any previous year.

Grainger’s partnership with Network Rail has delivered 857 rental homes and includes plans for up to 2,000 more, indicating a repeatable pipeline of station-adjacent sites.

For the sector, the gap between strong investor appetite and falling starts favours contractors with committed BTR schemes on station-adjacent sites, where public land partners and long-term landlords reduce delivery risk.

Source: Yahoo Finance (ADVFN) / Real Estate:UK / Landlord Today / Insider Media