Birmingham’s first dedicated co-living scheme is now before city planners.

Sharia-compliant real estate business Sama Investments has applied to build 100 co-living private-rented sector apartments, along with 4.5K SF of amenity space, and a ground floor business incubator and coworking space. In all there will be 130 rooms, documents submitted to Birmingham City Council revealed.

Sama is best known for its involvement in the purpose-built student accommodation sector.

The Solihull-based investor led by Chief Executive Paul Squire and head of origination Bilal Ahmed and director Sultan Choudhury was founded in 1997, and by 2000 had a Birmingham-based residential portfolio of 500 units. Since 2012 it has been focusing on purpose-built student housing.

In 2019 the business opened offices in Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to strengthen its investor network. The same year it launched the UK’s first Shariah-compliant bridge finance platform, and now positions itself as the UK’s only regional Shariah-compliant property lender.