<p>Gatehouse Bank has launched a £500 million joint venture with TPG Real Estate Partners (TREP) to deliver up to 2,500 suburban, family rental homes across northern England and the Midlands.</p> <p>The jv, which the UK retail bank and real estate investment firm said was poised to become one of the UK’s largest providers of purpose built single family rental homes, has secured an initial “seed portfolio” of four sites, in partnership with Countryside Properties.</p> <p>The launch properties consist of 321 single family homes, in established communities in the Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside regions. </p> <p>Gatehouse Bank said that under the jv it hoped to develop existing partnerships and form new ones with other housebuilders, forward funding the rental schemes and reaching the portfolio’s target of 2,500 houses.</p> <p>This adds to Gatehouse Bank’s two other significant Build to Rent portfolios. In January it sold Thistle - a portfolio consisting of 918 houses across 15 sites mainly of two and three bedroom homes in North West England - to Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking division for a total consideration of around £150 million.</p> <p>Paul Stockwell, Gatehouse Bank’s chief commercial officer, said: “We are delighted to have found an experienced, institutional partner in …