Lloyds Banking Group has become one of the country’s largest residential landlords, with property holdings valued at £2B, after the bank built up a portfolio of more than 7,000 homes in recent years, according to analysis from the Financial Times.

The lender, already the UK’s biggest mortgage provider, set out in 2020 to acquire 50,000 rental homes by 2030, and it launched its Lloyds Living division, originally called Citra Living, in 2021 to deliver and manage rental and shared ownership properties.

The division now oversees 7,500 homes across 42 developments nationwide, ranging from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom houses in predominantly suburban locations. Its latest acquisition was the 610-home Start Living portfolio established through a joint venture between Gatehouse Living Group and TPG Real Estate.

In terms of scale, this expansion places Lloyds alongside major UK private landlords such as Legal & General, M&G and Grainger.

Much of the bank’s activity has involved financing development partners to build new homes. In June, Lloyds deepened its build-to-rent partnership with the UK’s largest housebuilder, Barratt Redrow, adding 598 homes across 11 Lloyds Living sites in counties including Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Cheshire and Gloucestershire.

The lender has also moved into social housing, converting former office buildings in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, into 93 affordable homes for rent at half the prevailing market rate.

Lloyds Banking Group CEO Charlie Nunn described the challenge of the UK building more affordable homes as “considerable and complex” but pointed to “countless brownfield sites that lie empty.”

On 21 October, Lloyds Living appointed Matt Burgess to succeed Andy Hutchinson, who stepped down earlier this year, as CEO.

“Lloyds Living has gone from a start-up to a portfolio of over 7,300 homes in four years,” Burgess said at the time of his appointment. “That’s only the beginning, we have exciting, ambitious plans to grow our portfolio, the number of rental homes in the UK and the number of people we can help get into homeownership.”

The move into rental housing forms part of Lloyds’ strategy to diversify its income streams. The bank reported strong income growth from its real estate arm.

Bisnow’s UK Living Series: UK Affordable Housing Conference takes place on 2 December at the Strand Palace Hotel. Tickets are available here.