Thistle is a Build to Rent property fund of almost 1,000 units which was developed by Gatehouse Bank and later sold to Goldman Sachs in 2021 for c. £150m, the largest transaction of its nature in the UK to date. The fund has been managed by Ascend Properties since March 2019 and we are continuing to work with Goldman Sachs on their growing portfolio going forward.

As well as migrating the properties from a previous agent, with no disruption to service, Ascend increased rents and revenue prior to Goldman Sach’s purchase. Through our expert analysis, the Build to Rent team were able to renegotiate rents which resulted in rent rises of 14% for new tenancies, plus almost 6% uplifts for renewals. This generated a blended revenue increase of over £300,000pa for the portfolio.

Efforts from all team members resulted in such success for the portfolio; the Asset Managers were able to provide an excellent service to the residents so that they were either happy to renew their tenancies and/or prepared to pay an increased rental amount for the high standards received from their dedicated point of contact.

Investments and growth in the Accounts department also helped to increase revenue. From the outset, Credit Control teams significantly reduced rental arrears, whilst Financial Controllers reported on financial gains and patterns in the data. The IT development team, another area of growth for Ascend, also supported this as they were able to better present the data and improve the invoicing process, thus ensuring reconciliation.