Nuveen Real Estate, one of the largest investment managers in the world with USD 147 billion of assets under management, has completed on a deal to forward-purchase the delivery of 141 single family housing in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. The assets were acquired for EUR 42 million, on behalf of Nuveen’s pan-European diversified Value Add strategy.

This latest acquisition takes the strategy to over 25 percent of capital deployed with fundraising continuing through 2024 to capitalise on potential returns through mispricing and repositioning opportunities in line with global megatrends.

Currently, the strategy has in excess of €350 million of dry powder following an additional closing in March this year, and has developed a strong acquisition pipeline as repricing opportunities come to market.

Situated in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, the 141 units are located across four single family estates, where there is an acute lack of supply. Nuveen will partner with Toivo Group Oyj, the leading developer of single family rental housing in Helsinki, to deliver affordable and energy-efficient homes. There will be a strong emphasis on creating homes with excellent sustainability credentials. Constructed using timber frames and integrating ground source heat pumps, car charging ports and solar panels, the new developments will be targeting an EPC rating of ‘A’.

Alongside Toivo, and local operating partner, Trevian, Nuveen has ambitions to build out additional single family estates in the region, which will help to provide a high quality, sustainable rental housing solution. In the Nordics, Nuveen manages over EUR 200 million of assets across the housing sector and has firm ambitions to become one of the region’s leading investment managers in the living space.

David Pearce, Fund Manager, Real Estate, Europe at Nuveen, said: “We adopted a patient capital deployment strategy in 2023 with valuations in some sectors and markets taking longer to filter through. Following the extension of our fundraising period to the end of 2024, the team is well positioned to take advantage of the repricing across Europe and seek attractive risk adjusted returns in our target sectors, which can offer substantial scalability potential.”

Oscar Maltesen, Director, Nuveen Real Estate, said: “As a broader real estate platform, single family rental is one of our key sector convictions, with the Nordics demonstrating particularly favourable underlying fundamentals and a highly dynamic rental market. We continue to see robust demand for well-located homes with leading sustainability credentials in submarkets, such as Helsinki, where supply remains extremely constrained for single family rentals. Nuveen already has several single family investments in the progressed submarkets of Copenhagen, but Helsinki remains a less mature market, where we are actively seeking opportunities to grow our portfolio across several mandates.”

The European Value Add strategy has a cross-sector outlook and will continue to source opportunities across the UK and Europe, focusing on urban logistics, housing and alternatives. In 2023, the strategy announced its first transaction with the acquisition of a high-quality self-storage portfolio in the UK. It comprises four assets totalling c. 240,000 sq ft of predominantly modern, bespoke, purpose-built properties, which are located across the south-east of England including Crawley, Edenbridge, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. An additional asset in Leyton, East London was acquired in Q4 2023 and the strategy continues to look at further opportunities to grow this self-storage venture.

The European Value Add strategy discloses under Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and builds on Nuveen’s strong track record of finding value add opportunities in Europe, with over 85 years of experience investing across multiple market cycles and an established investment process.