How the directory is compiled

What counts as build-to-rent

A scheme is listed when it is purpose-built or acquired for renting and held by a single owner. The test differs by product type, because the unit of ownership differs:

• Multifamily — apartment buildings. The whole building must be in one ownership and professionally managed. A fund holding some flats inside a block with many other owners is not listed.
• Single family — houses. A parcel of homes bought as a block from a housebuilder and managed as one operation is listed, even where the rest of the estate was sold to individual buyers.
• Co-living is listed as multifamily with its own tag. Serviced apartments, student accommodation and homes sold off-plan to individual investors are outside scope.

Where the data comes from

• Ownership — HM Land Registry title records, corporate and overseas ownership datasets, Companies House filings, and transaction announcements. Owners are recorded at the level of the named entity that holds the asset as a business, not the fund's investors above it or the special purpose vehicle below it.
• Operator — the company running the building day to day, taken from the scheme's own website and its terms of use, then from industry news. Where a managing agent works under an operator's brand, the brand is recorded as the operator and the agent separately.
• Status and completion — planning records, building-safety approvals, contractor announcements and the operator's letting page. A scheme moves to Operational when it is letting, not when it is announced.
• Units, amenities and rents — the scheme's own page, the EPC register for building facts, and monthly readings of advertised asking rents where a scheme publishes them.
• Location — full postcodes where available, geocoded for the map; schemes without a full postcode carry a district-level position.

How records are kept current

Automated checks re-read each scheme's source page on a rolling cycle and watch the public registers for ownership changes. Anything they find is filed as a proposed change with its source and a confidence rating, and a person reviews it before the record changes. Nothing is overwritten on the strength of a guess; where a fact cannot be confirmed, the existing value stays and the gap is recorded.

Every scheme page shows when its source was last checked. Ownership changes are kept as history, so a scheme that has traded shows its previous owner as well as its current one.

What the fields mean

• Operator — who manages and lets the homes.
• Asset owner — who holds the asset. Often more than one.
• Developer — who built it. A main contractor is not the developer.
• Status — In Planning, Under Construction or Operational. Phased estates are one listing with the phases recorded underneath it.
• Units — homes in the build-to-rent parcel only. Affordable or for-sale homes on the same site are excluded.

Counts

Every number on the site — schemes, operators, owners, cities — is generated from the live database when the page is built, so figures on different pages always agree and are never typed by hand.

Corrections and licensing

If you spot an error, submit a correction and it will be reviewed against source. The directory is a database protected by database right; see the terms of use for what you may do with it, and data licensing for team access to the full dataset.