National Housing Bank commits up to £70m to Fiera and Packaged Living rental fund

The National Housing Bank has committed up to £70m to the Fiera Real Estate Single Family Housing (FRESH) fund, an open-ended vehicle targeting a portfolio of more than £1bn of family rental homes across the UK.

The Bank, a Homes England company, said its commitment comprises a £51m cornerstone investment and a further £19m that will become available as the fund scales. With capital from private institutional partners, FRESH has now reached £200m of investment capacity, it said.

FRESH was established by Fiera Real Estate UK Limited and Packaged Living Limited, Fiera's rental living platform. According to the Bank, the fund will invest through forward-funding and forward-commitment agreements with developers and housebuilders to deliver newly built family rental homes in supply constrained locations.

Simon Century, Chief Executive Officer for the National Housing Bank, said: "This investment demonstrates the role the National Housing Bank can play in attracting institutional capital into housing delivery."

The fund

Fiera Real Estate and Packaged Living announced a first close for FRESH on 5 August 2026, saying they had secured seed capital from a group of institutional investors. That release did not name the Bank.

Fiera said then that the fund would target average deal sizes of 50 to 200 homes and would use the Sustainability Impact label under the UK Sustainable Disclosure Regulation. On 27 August the two firms appointed Mike Weston, former Chief Executive of LGPS Central, as Strategic Advisor to the FRESH strategy, with Fiera saying the fund was targeting £1bn in assets under management.

Fiera Real Estate's own UK single-family strategy page describes a target of about 3,000 units across about 20 schemes with a likely South-eastern focus, whereas the Bank's announcement and the August releases describe a £1bn-plus portfolio across the UK.

Fiera Real Estate UK Limited is the European real estate arm of Fiera Capital Corporation. Its August release said Packaged Living was developing and operating about 4,000 homes, with a portfolio gross development value of £1.2bn as at 30 June 2026. Fiera's strategy page puts Packaged Living at more than £604m of assets across 1,400 single-family homes alongside a 2,300-home multi-family portfolio.

Ed Ellerington, CEO of Packaged Living, said: "This is a further example of how effective collaboration between private and public capital can accelerate housing delivery across multiple tenures and at scale."

Long Harbour commitment

The FRESH commitment follows the Bank's £100m equity commitment in July 2026 to the Long Harbour Single Family Housing Fund. Long Harbour said that investment was made on a matched funding basis and took total equity raised for that fund to £400m, following a £300m seed commitment from South Korea's National Pension Fund in December 2024.

National Housing Bank commitment	£m
Long Harbour Single Family Housing Fund (July 2026)	100
FRESH (November 2026)	70

Homes England also said at the Bank's launch on 1 April 2026 that a £100m partnership with Aviva would build up to 3,300 homes for rent.

Background

The government announced the National Housing Bank on 17 June 2025 as a publicly owned subsidiary of Homes England with £16bn of financial capacity. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said at the time the public investment would help build over 500,000 homes and unlock over £53bn of private investment.

Homes England repeated the £53bn figure at the Bank's launch, when it said the two institutions together had up to £46bn of capital to deploy over the next decade. The Bank's own statement accompanying the FRESH announcement puts its private capital ambition at more than £50bn.

The Bank says it will invest up to £16bn over the next decade through debt, equity and guarantee products, and offers partners tailored and blended finance alongside Homes England support.

Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said the £70m would "get new family homes for rent off the ground and unlock private investment".

The Bank said FRESH's £200m of investment capacity includes its further £19m commitment, which will become available as the fund scales.