Mr. Bob Jordan:

Institutional investment in the private rented sector is the Holy Grail to some extent. The private rented sector internationally tends to be very fragmented. Up to 80% of landlords in Ireland have one or two properties. It is a real cottage industry. The main reasons institutional investment is looked at are increasingly professional management practices and increased scale. A further consideration is that where the State is using the sector for schemes like RAS, HAP or long-term leasing, one of the bugbears of local authorities is having to deal with so many individual landlords. Where a landlord owns one property, the local authority must come up with contracts for that and then deal with the next landlord. It is very hard to scale up these schemes. The opportunities are there. Pension funds are looking at the private sector. In Ireland, rents fell from peak by 20% to 30% whereas property prices fell 50% to 60%. On balance, it is not a bad bet. There is better information on the rate of return in the private rented sector while ultimately, REITS have looked more at the corporate side of things.