Taylor Wimpey in private rental trial

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey is to trial building “four or five” schemes of homes for the private rent market, despite chief executive Pete Redfern having major misgivings about the sector.

Redfern told Building Taylor Wimpey will trial the schemes - of about 50 homes each - on land it already owns on sites in “specific markets” outside of London.

He said the move amounted to the housebuilder “dipping its toe in the water” of the private rented market, which is being heavily pushed by the government and others as a potential solution to the UK housebuilding crisis.

Taylor Wimpey intends to start the schemes on site in the first quarter of next year.

Redfern’s comments followed a speech to the Housing Market Intelligence conference, where he said Taylor Wimpey had been looking in to investing in the private rented sector. He said: “Private rent is an important market but the drivers of growth are financial and the interventions made so far are simply not enough to make it stack up.

“There are only very specific market conditions which make it viable, it is very difficult to do at any scale.”

In August the government published a report by Adrian Montague on stimulating the institutional private rented sector, which recommended that requirements for affordable housing be dropped on schemes for rental housing.