Ascend Launches Industry-First Online Single-Family BTR Operational Expenditure Tool

• Instant OpEx Generator draws on Ascend’s market-leading dataset to provide ‘gross to net’ and cost per home budgets in as little as three clicks

• Innovative tool sheds light on operational budgeting, giving investors a true picture of costs and considerations when bringing new assets to the market

Ascend, the UK’s largest third-party operator of single-family build-to-rent (SFR) homes, has launched the sector’s first operational expenditure generator, giving investors unparalleled insight into the costs of running SFR portfolios nationwide.

The Instant OpEx Generator draws on Ascend’s market-leading data – pulling from more than 100,000 datapoints from over six years of managing and consulting on SFR portfolios – to deliver ‘gross to net’ and cost per home in only three clicks, with an advanced version providing a more detailed analysis in just 60 seconds. The tool can be accessed through Ascend’s website here.

The Generator is a major innovation for the build-to-rent sector, for the first time giving investors the capability to assess the operational costs of a given asset, providing both ‘proof of concept’ when appraising a potential investment or benchmarking existing holdings’ performance. Its launch represents a continuation of Ascend’s ongoing provision of market-leading data, thought leadership and market advocacy.

Ascend has utilised its in-house data analysis and IT capabilities to deliver the budgeting tool, which uses API-linked PowerBi reporting to both provide a near-live view of operational costs and pull in further datapoints as new assets come online. By analysing and utilising datasets from institutionally-managed homes over a year old following the lapse of warranty across its current and historic managed portfolios – to return true stabilised operational expenditure costings – as well as data from schemes Ascend has consulted on or provided benchmarking services for, Ascend’s dataset is unrivalled in the sector.

Paul Borrmann, Managing Director of Ascend, said: 

The Instant OpEx Generator is the first time a tool such as this has been produced either for SFR or the wider build-to-rent sector, and we anticipate significant appetite from investors seeking to both assess potential costs and also benchmark their current holdings. It is a common frustration among investors and capital market teams that robust data and insights are hard to come by in such a young asset class, and we have built this tool to address that need.

With more than two thirds of the SFR sector under Ascend’s management, the depth and reach of our data is unmatched and places us in a unique position to drive greater understanding. As SFR continues to grow, it is absolutely vital that investors have as full a picture as possible of the operational costs involved, and we see this tool as an essential part of the armoury as they look to identify new acquisitions and benchmark their performance.